Posted 2:07 AM by sport

Haven't posted much, haven't checked email in many days, and ain't feeling terribly urgent in either case. Recent days have been largely joyless and nights largely sleepless. No reason to get too deep into any of it, though... just more of the constant stress and agita. Aftermath of the recent fires, car accidents, et al. The family is just battered and weary and enough is too much already. Whenever the stress lets up, depression fills the breach, so Jesus, what to do? I roused myself from my torpor to go to the Vanity Set release party on Monday. It was simply a matter of deciding (last minute) that I didn't want to let Meredith down by behaving like some suburban slug... I already had to bail on plans to join Bianca Bob at a Tin Huey reunion last Friday, and that was regrettable. So, at 9:30, I made up my mind to go to the midnight show, and it was cab to train to cab for 2 hours, catch the show and hang a bit (stayed about 2 and 1/2 hours) and repeat the trip home. I'm glad I went, though; the band sounded great and she seemed real happy that I came in. It was predictably fucked having to continually go out and in for smoke breaks, but what the hell.

Shelley's early pregnancy is pretty taxing for her. I hope things get a bit easier so we can enjoy the prospect of these births without all the nausea, migraines and exhaustion she's been enduring. Me, I'm in a fog. Began trying to figure out how to use the recording machine I got many months ago. It'll be a long time learning for this technocretin, but even if I don't return to "songwriting" it oughtta be fun dicking around with sound. Songs do come to mind but I let them pass. They're like idle thoughts that hold no more significance than puns or remembered film trivia. Waiting on line in some drug store today, I was subjected to the Talking Heads - a band I can't fucking stand - and this Beck song "Lost Cause," which sounds to me like Keith Carradine's "I'm Easy" if Carradine had even less to say lyrically and even fewer ideas musically. I honestly don't know what some of you people hear in this stuff. I did, however, buy some Pinaud bay rum aftershave, and that's something I can recommend. Smells are more satisfying than songs lately, and the only passing attention I pay to music is whatever happens to come on the TV as I click from channel to channel.

Watched "Decline of Western Civilization 2: the Metal Years" for the first time since the Skels watched it together back in '89 or so. I recall the chill that ran down my spine as all the interviewees responded to the question "what if you don't succeed?" with flat assertions of "But I will. There's no question in my mind." Anyone could see that none of them would make it, and yet we'd have answered exactly the same way. This time I didn't feel the chill; I just wondered what they were all doing now, and what replaced that determination in each of them. It's some lovely fantasy that youngsters believe, and as much as most of the music meant nothing to me then (or now), I appreciated seeing them all with their dreams still burning. I did not feel as empathetic watching Gene Simmons interviewed. Then and now, what a prick. As much of a dolt as Dave Mustaine might have been, his earnestness reminded me why I'd always choose Megadeth over Kiss. Even as a teen I hated the music of Kiss, but in the early Skels days I listened to "Peace Sells" a LOT. I recently read a biography of F.W. Woolworth, and can see that a study of Kiss might be interesting from the same standpoint of American business savvy, but that's about it. The kids with the teased hair handing out flyers for their bands' Tuesday night showcase gigs wanted nothing more noble than what Simmons so arrogantly flaunts (untold riches, boundless poon), so it's pretty feeble grounds for romanticism, but hell, so be it.

Right now everybody's hot and bothered over stuff like the White Stripes. There's nothing but NOTHING there, to these ears. I prefer the new Voi Vod, but that isn't saying I'd sit and listen to it. In Tower Records the other day I noted the further shrinking of the classical department; soon it'll be about the size of Spoken Word. I'd gone in to look for a particular Lou Harrison piece and discovered that there is no Lou Harrison music there at all, just a few bins featuring the usual "Mozart To Make Your Baby Smarter" kind of thing. The house system played "Pet Sounds," which has begun to approach "Appalachian Spring" in the "music-I-love-ruined-forever-by-fad-overkill" stakes.

In upcoming entries will probably write more of the song-memory things I began to spew here on a recent boozy night-morning. They remind me of a past where life was not really "better" but blessed with a sense of hope that time has since doused.

Well, that'll do for one day.