Post: #1

Robert Vineberg aka Robert Aaron was arrested in a connection with the Phillip Seymour Hoffman's death.


Apparently the police found hundreds of little heroin baggies in his apartment, although none of the drugs were traced back to Hoffman yet. Nevertheless, there are witnesses who claim that this guy dealt h to Hoffman previously, and indeed they found the actor's phone number on Vineberg's cellphone.

What I don't get it here is why didn't he get rid of those drugs in anticipation of the authorities knocking on his door?? Hoffman died Sunday noon, the cops busted this guy Tuesday evening. He had two and half days at least to get rid of dealing evidence, what was he thinking? This isn't something a typical drug dealer would do/not do, is it?

That's because maybe he wasn't your typical dealer.

So who is he?



He's a 57-years-old funk show brother who moved from Montreal to NYC in the 1970s and consequently built a hip, little career as a self-taught, multi-talented, versatile musician that eventually worked studio sessions with Blondie, Bowie, Jagger, Tom Jones, Wyclef Jean, Amy Winehouse, etc.

This is his self-description from a press release in connection with his solo album Trouble Man released in 2010:

“Forced to fend for himself from the age of 14, Robert soon left his hometown of Montreal and arrived in New York in 1976 where he made a living by busking on the streets of Brooklyn. He quickly became a regular on the New York No Wave scene and was part of the original line-up of James Chance and the Contortions. He still performs with them today. He was spotted by David Bowie and recorded the ‘Let’s Dance’ album with him. Not a bad start to his career.” The release added Robert “never had any career plan.” Rather, he was guided by the “twin principles of pleasure and joy.”

Others described him this way:

"In 1976 he had started out busking and attended what was termed “the American school,” meaning he learned his technique and style on the street and in bars and clubs. He proved to be remarkably multitalented, a virtuoso on the alto sax, but also skilled on all the saxophones, as well as keyboards and horns and flute and clarinet and guitar and seemingly everything else."

"In his younger years, he was a part of the No Wave scene, playing with the visionary James Chance and the Contortions. Chance spoke of him Friday as one of our culture’s blessings.

“He’s actually one of the best musicians I’ve ever met,” Chance said.

Chance added, “He’s a very schooled musician, the kind of musician you don’t see in too many young players anymore.”

Chance noted that Vineberg had toured with Bowie and served as Wyclef Jean’s musical director for a decade “But nobody knows him because he hasn’t worked a lot as a leader,” Chance said. “He’s a kind of guy many leaders have relied on because he can do anything.”

And, the life of a sideman had become all the more difficult in recent years.

“The music business has changed tremendously,”Chance said. “There’s not as much money in it any more. There just isn’t the kind of studio work there used to be.”

Chance further reported, “Also, music is really crowded with all kinds of people who want to be stars and are willing to work for nothing to realize their fantasies.”

“Sometimes, really good musicians get ignored,” Chance lamented.

Vineberg is one accused pusher whose friend says of him, “He’s a very sweet person. He’s a real gentleman.”

All of this makes you suspect that Vineberg and Hoffman hit if off beyond whatever heroin transactions they may or may not have engaged in. Hoffman was himself a remarkably versatile artist and he is remembered by friends by those same words, “a very sweet person.”

"Had Hoffman not died of an overdose, his daughter reportedly suggests, the low-key Vineberg might now be selling modest amounts of heroin to support his own use of the drug and to meet his everyday living expenses. “This was his unfortunate way of trying to keep up,” his daughter, Christina Soto, was quoted telling a reporter shortly after he was arrested on Tuesday evening. “He’s a genius when it comes to music, but he’s 57. Getting a job isn’t easy when you’re a musician at 57.”

So this largely out-of-work musician without any prior convictions and/or legal trouble, who is considered by many as musical genius, and is taken to be very social, friendly, mellow kind of fellow, is now held in jail without the possibility of bail, because he was forced to engage in criminal acts in his overly mature years in order to survive changing economy, age discrimination and overpriced New York City. Instead of heeding to his higher calling of playing music, chilling, and perhaps smoking a little pot, the artist is forced to hustle on the side in order to make ends meet. No one can convince me that this guy is a criminal psychopath who went around with the intent of hurting people. Look at the video at the bottom, he's an original hipster who just wanted to jam in his life. Tough luck though because under the excuse of "personal responsibility" America will now make a public scapegoat of him just so the thirst for the revenge frothing from the mouths of the mass media-induced lynch mobs can be satisfied... under the next front page news bomb, that is.

Under no circumstances am I absolving any heroin dealers from their deeds, but America's drug problem is highly complex issue, much more than any given public lynching will resolve. Nevertheless, there's a feeling in some that if only the U.S. leaders had a mature political will appropriate for the 21st century, and the administrative/healthcare/well-being support structure to deal with it's problem in the open (similar to those found in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Scandinavia) as opposed to sweeping it under the rug and driving it further underground, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and countless of others before and after him will not have paid the ultimate price.

There's also a lesson to all of us here: the time waits for no one, today you are a trendy hipster, tomorrow you're a failed loser. It takes hard wisdom and extraordinary vision to comprehend larger forces at play, to properly imagine yourself at any given moment in the unknown future, and to act accordingly.

Post: #2

Robert Vineberg aka Robert Aaron aka Vincent Price

Post: #3

Probably using himself. In fact it's better for him now if he was using. If what they say about the quantities they found in his apartment is true, he'll be lucky to ever get out again. His best defense would be to say he was stockpiling for personal use himself.

Post: #4

(02-07-2014 12:38 PM)Sp5 Wrote:  Probably using himself. In fact it's better for him now if he was using. If what they say about the quantities they found in his apartment is true, he'll be lucky to ever get out again. His best defense would be to say he was stockpiling for personal use himself.

That defense doesnt go to well with the hundreds of little baggies they found in his apartment.

Post: #5

(02-07-2014 02:34 PM)w00t Wrote:  

(02-07-2014 12:38 PM)Sp5 Wrote:  Probably using himself. In fact it's better for him now if he was using. If what they say about the quantities they found in his apartment is true, he'll be lucky to ever get out again. His best defense would be to say he was stockpiling for personal use himself.

That defense doesnt go to well with the hundreds of little baggies they found in his apartment.

Aside from challenging the search warrant, sometimes that's all you got. That's why people plead guilty, they get the choice: plead, you get five - ten years and maybe you get out, or 20 years after trial and you die in prison.

Post: #6

The wall awaits us all. This isn't a case of age discrimination as earlier suggested, it is merely what happens to every one who does not push himself to be bigger and better, and who does not save up /invest money for when times get tight. If you aren't willing to keep pushing, find a wife. Just as women have to work out and watch their diet, men need to frame their game and keep changing it up. This dealer failed. End of story .

Post: #7

(02-08-2014 07:17 PM)Gimlet Wrote:  The wall awaits us all. This isn't a case of age discrimination as earlier suggested, it is merely what happens to every one who does not push himself to be bigger and better... men need to frame their game and keep changing it up. This dealer failed. End of story .

You're missing the point, as well as nuances, of this story. Some of the men of the old school persuasion, and by that here I mean those whose formative years happened in tremendously different era, are inherently unwilling by their own volition to follow the latest shit fad the current era is expecting them to. There are eternal artsy souls outthere, there always were throughout history, who march to the beat of their own drum and are happy with just doing what they love, all other markers of success, societal how-to be damned. Didn't you read the bolded part in the first post that this guy was following the twin principles of pleasure and joy?

Here's a larger quote from the horse's mouth:

"Robert never had any career plan, his only guide being his thirst for music and the twin principles of pleasure and joy, and few people know his name and his place in the history of music. He has always preferred life in the wings and other shady areas to the 'bling bling' of the star system."

Once upon a time I'm sure he made comfortable living just being a session musician. It was a sweet spot for him, cool gigs, easy money doing what you love, no stress. But that was in different New York, different America, different world. With the advent of globalization, computer technologies, talent outsourcing, and destabilization and fragmentation of music industry, those gigs dried up. So he had to expand his reach to commercials, to movie music, and god knows what other few-and-far-in-between else. As late as 2008 he toured with Wyclef Jean, but with his advancing age that dried up too. It was no longer possible to live stress-free and cruise through on talent alone, jamming, smoking weed. Suddenly, life was all hustle, and very little play (where once it used to be all play, and very little hustle) And forgive me if I sound bitter, but I shit on places (and/or historical times) where massively talented and skilled artists of his caliber can't make even a basic living. If he moved to Berlin and Amsterdam I'm sure he would have been fine, but staying put in the New York City post Disneyfied Times Square and the advent of Internet (mid '90s) was the crucial detail in his undoing.

He just didn't know when to fold 'em.

---

"On a warm summer's eve
On a train bound for nowhere
I met up with the gambler
We were both too tired to sleep
So we took turns a-starin'
Out the window at the darkness
The boredom overtook us, and he began to speak

He said, "Son, I've made my life
Out of readin' people's faces
Knowin' what the cards were
By the way they held their eyes
So if you don't mind my sayin'
I can see you're out of aces
For a taste of your whiskey
I'll give you some advice"

So I handed him my bottle
And he drank down my last swallow
Then he bummed a cigarette
And asked me for a light
And the night got deathly quiet
And his faced lost all expression
He said, "If you're gonna play the game, boy
You gotta learn to play it right

You've got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
Know when to run
You never count your money
When you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin'
When the dealin's done

Now every gambler knows the secret to survivin'
Is knowin' what to throw away
And knowin' what to keep
'Cause every hand's a winner
And every hand's a loser
And the best that you can hope for
Is to die in your sleep"