To Albany and Back: Josh Cotrona's Albany Adventure

Josh Cotrona, rocking a Baroness t-shirt.

The first time that I moved to Albany, I was only about nineteen years old. I never really went out or anything at that time. I guess I wasn't smart enough to get an ID back then. I would go to shows a lot, though. And Valentines sometimes.

I did enjoy going to Tulip Fest at Washington Park. And since I lived downtown on Lark Street, there was really no way for me to avoid Lark Fest. I think that one of the stages was like right across from my apartment, so I was kind of forced to listen to that.

Nothing too crazy happened then. I guess the only thing would be that at that time when I lived downtown, sometimes I would find drunk people passed out by our entry way. Some would ask for money. But it wasn't often. It wasn't too bad.

I left, though, and went on a road trip to California. I didn’t tell anyone I was leaving. I didn't even tell my mom that I wasn't living around here anymore until I had been living out there for a month. She freaked out a little, but I kind of expected that.

The friend I was with was from Colorado, so we stopped there on our way to California. When we were visiting his hometown, that's when I met my wife, Betsy. She was actually from Maryland and just happened to move out there. It was pretty random. We were both just in the right place.

I lived in Carlsbad, California for a while. When I was there she came out to visit me. I also went back to Colorado to visit her. And that was kind of how we started dating. We decided to move back east together. We moved to Newport, Massachusetts. About a year later we got married.

We decided to move back to Albany because I grew up here and all of my family is here. It is also a lot cheaper to live in Albany than it is to live in Newport. Since we were trying to save a little money. Moving back was a good idea.

So now I live back downtown off Lark Street on Chestnut. Overall, I like living downtown. I still don't really go out that much. Sometimes I'll go to Bombers. I used to go a lot when they had Win, Lose or Draw. That was fun. But now it’s a little too crowded for me.

I do go to the Lark Tavern sometimes. And I like going to the Spectrum for movies. I’m not that raw. I guess what I do here isn’t that raw, either.

It's fun to people-watch in Albany. I try never to talk to anyone when I do. But, sometimes someone will make eye contact and I can’t avoid it. I'll do it anywhere: a coffee shop, the laundromat, that sort of thing.

I work as a freelance carpenter: remodeling, construction, painting. It's not hard to find work or anything, though. I just do it on my own. Sometimes I get work through somebody else, but mostly on my own.

I have thought about moving out of this area. As far as living somewhere else in Albany, I would live over by St. Peter's Hospital. I would move there if I was ready to have a home and settle down, if I wanted to have children and start a family. I'm not ready for that yet.

Realistically, when we are ready for that, we probably won’t stay in this area at all. I would most likely move back to Massachusetts. It's a nice place to have a family and raise children.--as told to Katie Serfilippi

Warehouse Songs and Stories: A Conversation with Mike of Mary Jane Books

Heading on over to Mary Jane Books to interview Mike, I was stopped by one of his coworkers, Nathaniel, who explained that Mike wasn’t in the store. He told me that if I still wanted to see Mike, he would be busy in their warehouse. This came as a big surprise. I was a bit skeptical at first--going into an unknown warehouse seems risky--but I was pleased to see Mike and a host of other people who only work exclusively in the warehouse waiting inside.

Mike offered me a chair, as he sat on a stool ladder.--Tony Geras

It’s just so weird interviewing you here, because I was expecting to go to the store. I was told by your friend Nathaniel to come here instead. I didn’t even know that you guys had a warehouse.
All the books that don’t get used during the semester get stored here and then a lot of books get bought off the internet and then we have to store them down here. We just sort them all down here; all the books that never get used for semesters you can get for a lot cheaper this way.

It’s kind of like a secret library, you know? There’s no sign showing this place is owned by Mary Jane Books, and there are literally thousands of books in here that aren’t held in the store.
Yeah, it’s pretty cool down here. You can get out of the store; it’s not as stressful.

Everything about the atmosphere here seems pretty laid-back. Both buildings have these hip, indie vibes. Do you listen to the kind of music that’s playing right now? What kind of music are you into?
We listen to all different kinds of stuff. I mostly listen to punk, a lot of underground stuff that you probably haven’t heard of before.

What bands?
The Big Boys?

Haven’t heard of them. I’ve gone to some underground punk shows, too, but it really wouldn’t be “underground” if we’ve all heard of it before, huh?
[Turns his attention to his coworkers as they’re walking by.]
You can get these guys to do an interview, too.

[Laughs] So all you guys just come down here to chill?
Yeah. A lot of the book orders get handled down here, too. The deliveries come down here, and then we price them and make sure they're OK.

Have you guys ever just came down here when you were too stressed out at the store?
Not really. Usually we’re just down here when the book orders get in. Nathaniel works down here. Usually there’s not as many people working down here either. When kids come back from school for the first couple of weeks, more people are employed.

What do you do to relax?
I ride bikes a lot. I’m a big bicycle rider. Not so much in the winter but during the summer I’m outside every day.

I think I’ve seen you riding around here before! Do you live in Albany, then?
Yeah, on Madison Avenue.

Cool, I was going to head to Madison at some point. I was initially going to interview someone at a head shop down there.
Which one?

I have no idea. There are so many!
Yeah, I know of a few that are on Madison, and there’s a bunch on Lark Street.

I ended up at one on Lark Street and the store got robbed while I was in there. When I went in, another person followed me inside and started asking for change; the lady working there told him that she doesn’t have any, but he could take a few quarters out of the tip jar. Then, he walked out with the tip jar.
[Laughs]
Why do they have a tip jar in a head shop?

I dunno. Has anything like that ever happened to you guys?
Some lady tried to sell a library book.

Really? Did it have the barcode and index thing on the back that you could tell?
It had printed right on the front: Albany Public Library. I was like, “Uh, you should probably return this to the library.”

What I've Learned: Steven Coffey

Steven Coffey, photographed in the author's kitchen in East Greenbush, NY.

Construction Manager, 45, Albany
By Emily Catherine Massa

You got to be mean. And I’m mean. I’m a carpenter by trade, but my vocation is construction management. To be a construction manager, you have to know how to technically do everyone else’s job, so you know they’re doing it right.

A lot of people in construction aren’t in it by choice. All they care about is getting home to the five o’clock cure. If they could be doing anything else, they would be. So you have to be very aggressive and patient at the same time. I’m basically a kindergarten teacher.

I’ve been doing carpentry since I was a very young man. My uncle was a builder. I got into the Marine Corps right after high school. I got out, went to college, and got a degree in Geology. My whole class was hired by Exxon. But I was a former specialist-in-nastiness, so I was more valuable to them as a Marine than a geologist. They said they were going to put a rifle back in my hands, and I just wasn’t having it. So I came back, and started to build. I love it.

I’ve been shot twice. So I know all about it.
I started a development on my own and I needed money for everything. There used to be this “Money to Lend” feature in the New York Times. I answered one of the ads, and it was all very official. There was a lawyer and lots of paperwork.

But before I knew it, I was getting money in suitcases. Cash. It was just like in the movies, except these guys had real guns. But that didn’t really bother me. They didn’t shoot very well.

Drink your beer. I was renovating a bar on Lark Street, The Griffin. It was the end of the day, we were all done, the bar’s ready to open. I was sitting at the bar with the owner, his bartender, and my foreman having a beer. I hadn’t been drinking for a couple of years, so mine was just sitting in front of me. All of a sudden, this guy drags his girlfriend in off the street, down the stairs, beating her. Just horribly. Wailing on her.

So I looked around and said, I’ll take care of this. I went over and intervened. In three-tenths of a second, I’ve had the guy’s arm twisted up behind his back and was tormenting him. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the emergency room. The girlfriend had gone over to the bar, picked up the beer I wasn’t drinking, and cracked me on the back of the head with it.

I should have drunk my beer. It would have been lighter.

When a German shepherd looks at you, it like they’re looking at your soul. I had this ninety-pound, solid black, German Shepherd I used to bring to the construction sites. Albany was pretty rough then. He would sit in front of the door and guard. If someone new came, he would just look at them. I’d had to say, Oh, let them in for him to move. That dog was so good.

Both of my daughters are excellent carpenters. I could never stand the thought of somebody watching my children, so they would come to the site with me. When it was nap time, I would put a blanket in one those construction tubs, and they would take naps in the tubs with bulldozers and people hammering in the background.

There used to be a lot of drinking on the job. One day my wife came by the site after work to take the little one home. The house we were working on was perfectly blank, just plain floors and sheetrock. So in the middle of this empty room is an empty beer can. And the little one walks up to the beer can, looks at it, and says Aww fuck! And my wife looks at me and says That’s it! And that was it. My girls developed some foul mouths being on construction sites. But it hasn’t hurt their personalities.

I’m never going to retire. I’ll give up working seven days a week, but I’ll still build one or two houses a year. That should keep me fine; I don’t need anything to retire on. Really, it’s all for my kids.--