2026 Video

In 2006 (20 years ago as of this writing), my friends and I wrote and recorded two songs – “Paul’s Basement” and “Grand Cinemas R.I.P.” Both were about key events and locations in our teen years. Eric, Matt, Dan, Paul, Clint and I recorded these two songs in various bedrooms, basements and living rooms. Then we performed them live, once, poorly, at the 2006 Paul’s Basement BBQ Mixer.

Listening to those two songs recently (circa 2026), I remembered how proud I was of what we created, and how disappointed I was that we didn’t have a good video for either one. I reached out to my life-long BFF Matt, and his son Nick, to enlist their help in creating a new video for “Paul’s Basement,” which is what you can see down below.

You can find more information + credits + lyrics in the Description section beneath the video on YouTube, if you’re interested. There are, however, a couple of things that my over-active brain wants to address right up front.

1. WHY SO WHITE? You are not wrong. We grew up in a mostly-white suburb, attended mostly-white schools and churches.
2. WHY SO BOY? There were definitely girls who were a part of our group – some of whom I still count as friends. But the truth is that most of our concert trips, music projects, short films, etc. were pretty dang boy-centric. Also, because some of the lyrics… well, I’m not sure those women would want to be name-checked here.
3. WHY SPIDER? There is a spider from approximately 1:18 to 1:30, if that kind of thing freaks you out (like Robin).
4. WHY SLUR? I cannot stress enough how common it was for my (male) friends and I to be called “f*gs” by the jocks and older kids during our junior high and high school years. Like, daily. You will see at one point that Eric signed his own yearbook picture with that epithet – an attempt to defang the name-calling. I decided to leave that in, because it was such a constant theme of those years.
5. I am particularly proud of my rock and roll kick at approximately 3:15.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER – JPT

2006 Video

Here’s the original, grainy, poorly-lit video of us performing “Paul’s Basement” live(-ish) in 2006: