The Yellow Dogs – Bruce

Yesterday, two young men named Soroush Farazmand and Arash Farazmand were murdered in cold blood. They were killed by a man called Raefe Ahkbar, a former bandmate of the two. They were members of a little-known band called The Yellow Dogs.

In times like this, details hardly matter much, though they will undoubtedly become tabloid fodder in the days ahead as more emerge. All told, four people, including Ahkbar, are now dead. The world is now a different place for their loved ones. Their deaths will never make any kind of sense.

The Yellow Dogs were based in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, the place I’ve called home for the last six years. The killings bookend, for me at least, what has been an utterly depressing newscycle that kicked off with the deaths of thousands of in the Philippines in Typhoon Haiyan. One event is strangely micro, occurring just a few blocks from my home. The other is macro, global, and literally a world away. They are coincidentally united by temporal proximity. And, in a larger sense, both share in a kind of absurdity. They are events that remind us that life is fragile and that for all of our planning and striving and fighting against it, we are all equally subject to the chaotic forces around us, be they nature or one another. We’re on borrowed time.

I had never heard of The Yellow Dogs before yesterday. Their music was a tense blend of Gang-of-Four style post-punk with some electronic flourishes. It has a seriousness to it, but theirs is music made for dancing. It seems that the most fitting remembrance for the departed is to get out there and do just that. Dance every day. Or create something. Or hug your friend. Or remove the earbuds for a damn minute. Or just stop do nothing to be present a moment. Life’s too short not to.

The first snow of the season fell this morning in New York City. Time’s a wasting.

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