Yeah, I know I’m slacking with the updates. I have to force myself to type some words on here when I just feel like sitting around chewing on styrofoam and sleeping.

Quite a few new things are happening in my otherwise mundane life, but as none of them involve leaving this room… I think a rant is in order. . . I’ll skip it. I still enjoy writing when I have something to say, but it seems as though everything anyone could ever possibly say has already been said. I just want to listen to Jawbreaker, eat tuna sandwiches and sleep.

I was going talk about the new Ryan Adams album, Demolition, but I can’t get throught it. I’ve been trying to listen to it all day, but it’s really not holding my interest.

Demolition is 13 songs in 45 minutes, and continues Ryan Adams’ descent into lyrical mediocrity and musical Top 40 oblivion.

On the whole, Demolition feels as brutally functional as any prog-rock album — which is quite a feat from a largely acoustic affair. Although it purports to be a collection of outtakes, demos and scratch tracks recorded immediately after the Gold sessions and during the Gold tour, the album sounds so coldly calculated and studio measured that I can hardly believe that it represents Ryan’s best spontaneous output during that 18 month period. Adams’ reputation as a songwriter is that he is as varied as he is prolific, but the tracks on this album feel as mass produced and inter-changeable as robots from the future.

I’ve tried to suck out the marrow, pull it apart, but there just anything thing there. It lacks fire, it lacks purpose, and it sounds like it could have been recorded by any group of Nashville studio musicians with songs written by committee.

Demolition sounds so grimly efficient that I can’t recommend it in the least. Unless you are a collector, you can skip it, but If you really want to hear it, I’ll burn you a copy.

Ryan Adams was right when he wrote “The Bar Is A Beautiful Place.” For the past two weeks, I’ve been frequenting Tunnicliffe’s Tavern at Eastern Market, and I have to say it has done wonders for my social life, even if it has left an almost Republican path of wonton destruction through my wallet and sleeping habits.

It’s worth it though, if only for the people I have met. Mike West and I met Melody, a recently repatriated American who has spent much the last decade globe-trotting through exotic locales which were once described as merely “There Be Dragons”.

Caitlin and I met Bruce, an ex-hippie HVAC technician and professional inventor who spent much of Monday night describing his recent patent for inprovements to home air-conditioners. Listening to Bruce wax poetic on EPA emissions standards lent new to the phrase “Whatever yer into dude!” and also made me appreciate the hours my dad made me spend helping fix things around the house.

At 9pm, Bruce remembered that Monday was his 25th wedding anniversary, but only because that’s when I remembered that it was Michael’s birthday. Caitlin helpfully suggested flowers and chocolate, while I put a vote in for apologetic groveling.

Caitlin and I also met Kenyetta, a man who found himself in the much the same situation that I was in last September, except that he got the extra added bonus prize of having to drive his ex-girlfriend to New York the next morning. I helpfully suggested he go home and make sure she didn’t steal his shampoo. Not that I’m bitter. . . I’m just sayin’.

Emily had the misfortune of meeting Brendan, who chain smokes, thinks Trent Lott is really cool, and actually tried to pick her up with the phrase “You’re a tough nut to crack.” No one liked Brendan, even Nick, who likes everybody.

The best find has to be Nick, the is he or isn’t he? Jewish bartending lawyer who keeps my cup filled and just today hooked Karen up with a great deal on a computer.

The moral of the story, boys and girls, is tip your bartender.

Anyway, speaking of Ryan Adams, I saw him recently in a Gap Jeans ad with Willie Nelson. I can understand the Red-Headed Stranger being in a Gap ad, the IRS took all of his money for back taxes and he needs some back. Besides, he’s earned his spurs, and like most crotchety old men, he can do what he damn well pleases.

But Ryan Adams. . .

1. Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes, I remember back when you called yourself David Ryan Adams, and you know what they say about three name people. Lee Harvey Oswald, John Wayne Gacy, Bill S. Preston Esq. Ted “Theodore” Logan. I sense a pattern here.

2. Drop the tortured artist bit, you’re in a Gap Jeans ad. This is the biggest example of You Can’t Call It This One Thing If It Does This Other Thing since Johnny Rotten/John Lydon, and Ryan, Whiskeytown was your Sex Pistols.

3. No matter what you do, some people are always going to say “I didn’t know Bryan Adams had a new record out”.

That’s it I’m winded.

Mark Your Calendars! Thursday September 19th is National “Talk Like A Pirate Day.” I’m not making this up.

To quote Blonde Redhead, “This is for me and everybody knows it.” Read it if you want, but it won’t make any sense and I guarantee that you will be bored senseless.

I’m trying to make sense of the last seven days. . . alot has happened, and I’m going to keep most of it to myself. But just to clear out the clutter;

I made a promise to myself when I started writing this thing that I would never talk about tech, programming, or the web. Well. . . I’m wrting this, so you get what I want you to have, so there.

Wednesday night the engineers were making hardware changes to the Away.com site, and my job was to be on call to answer any questions that they may have had. Actually, to be totally, honestly, chronologically and temporally accurate — for the record, you might say — it was closer to the short hours of Thursday morning. . . the 3am-5am time slot, which is usually reserved for sleeping. So. . I just stayed awake. . . for 36 hours. Sometime in those wee hours, I found myself pondering the following:

1. PERL’s Regular Expressions and Pattern Matching are the nail in the coffin of the existence of a truly benevolent Creator. Aristotle can take his Etiological Argument and shove it. He didn’t spend an hour writing this:
$temp_var =~ s|< \s*A\s[^>]*?>\s*(< \s*IMG[^>]*?>)\s*< \s*/a>| $1|gim;

2. Did Sloane Peterson and Ferris Bueller get married and have kids? What are they like?

3. The NBC television show Dog Eat Dog brings the world one step closer to a dream of mine — topless reality television. It is evil. It is an abomination. I hope I catch the reruns.

And finally. . . last night a group of us went out for Indian food, and to the Black Cat for Mousetrap — britpop dance night. Needless to say, we all had alot of fun, although some had more fun than others. To wit, during the cab ride home, Dileep looked at me and said, “What a great night. I’ve got a beautiful woman on my left, and a beautiful woman on my right!” Emily (left-side girl) looked at Dileep, and responded earnestly. . . “And I’ve got rice on my lap.”

Word, Emily. . . word.

Hilly was right — emo sucks. But it’s not just emo that sucks. Music sucks, especially live music. Your favorite band is atrocious, and my favorite band is only marginally better.

But it wasn’t always like this. People didn’t always stand in the back with their arms crossed. You remember don’t you? August 1992, when we went to see Jawbox at Rockafellas. The Belltower was the opening band, and although is was really cool to see Brianna — the voice of Jem from Jem and the Holograms — play her Mini-Mustang with those tiny fingers, everyone knew who we were there to see.

At the intermission, the crowd all pressed together at the front of the stage, all sweat and hormones, in anticipation. We were all buzzing, winding up inside like springs. When Jawbox ripped into Ones and Zeros, the entire place erupted. The club was a frenzy of lights and sounds, as we all pushed and pulled once another, screamed the words in each others ears, lost ourselves in the mass of bodies, and bounced around until we were all hot, exhausted, spent, and no one could really tell where the audience ended and the band began.

But that was ok, because that’s why we were all there. We all knew that the purpose of going to the show was to dance and yell and scream, just like we did at home, when we would turn up the song realy loud, dance around our rooms and scream into the matress. The only difference was that at the club, we were surrounded by people who all screamed into the matress, and we thought for a few hours that we had found our tribe.

Shows don’t feel like that anymore. Maybe the bands have changed, or maybe I’ve changed as I’ve gotten older, but I just don’t feel that urgency, that mad rush like I did, even though I still know all the words and still scream into my matress. I was beginning to think that maybe that euphoria had all gone away, until the show last night.

Last night, I drug (dragged ?) Caitlin, Maya, and Emily to the Black Cat to see Jason Lowenstein. For the uninitiated, Jason was one of the original members of Sebadoh, who kept the band from going totally sappy. While Lou Barlow, the original emo posterboy, was writing classics like Brand New Love and Magnet’s Coil, Jason was writing classics like Careful, and Not Too Amused. And Sebadoh. . . hell, everyone knows who Sebadoh is.

Speaking of Sebadoh — You may remember a VW commercial that came out a few years ago featuring a song Pink Moon, by 1970s mope-folkie, Nick Drake. I’d been trying to place where I’d heard the songs before, and I just realized that Sebadoh did a crazy noise/sludgerock cover of PInk Moon on the 1992 album Smash Your Head on the Punk Rock. Score one for SeBAdoh.

Anyway, Lowenstein has finally released a solo album on Subpop — At Sixes and Sevens, and is touring in support of the same. Thankfully, we missed the opening band, Sumac, but we were forced to suffer through the next band (The Sounds of) Kaleidoscope. They had a kinda noisy 1960’s Beach Boys, Zombies thing happening, but I couldn’t tell if it was purposefully noisy or if they just couldn’t keep it together. Emily said, “They’re not so bad, but there is nothing to recommend them.” Well said.

Yeah, so Lowenstein came on, and instead of moving to the front of the club to cross their arms, the crowd just left. It only took about 2 songs for the crowd to clear out. I guess they were expecting confessional Lou Barlow stuff. Well, Jason is no Chris Cabrerra, and is never going to sing about his ex-girlfriend, unless he is telling her exactly how far she should go away.

So, the girls and I fought our way (sic) to the front of the crowd (sic) of 30 and set up shop. It didn’t take long until I forgot I was in a club, and I began to jump and yell and scream and generally behave like a sixteen year old, instead of a twenty-six year old. Meanwhile, the girls are going crazy (like Girls Gone Wild, the PG version) and luckily, we were all having too much fun to realize that the rest of assembled had moved far away from us.

For his part, Jason was as manic, urgent,energetic, frenetic, frantic, and angular as ever. It was the best show I’ve been to in a long time, and when Jason and the band broke into an extended version of Mind Reader . . well, I almost hurt myself.

In summary, thank you Jason Lowenstein, for restoring my faith, and for your beautiful sludge.

To summarize the summary, go buy Jason Lowenstein’s At Sixes and Sevens, or face the wrath of Simplemath.

That’s all. I’m winded.

So. . Monday.

Yet another fine afternoon with Holly. These are turning into regular occurrences, which is awesome, except that I have to worry about getting pushed into oncoming traffic more frequently than any mortal man should. She says that she just has slight homicidal tendencies, but I think I just set her off. Either way, she walks next to the curb. Also, either way, let me say — for the record — that if I should meet some sort of untimely automotive demise, I will most surely be pointing my undead finger in her general direction. That, and Mike West gets the record collection.

Anyway, we spent the afternoon not buying posters, despite our best efforts, which included walking through the more hip sections of DC and looking at an unfathomable number of “collegiate” posters. It’s not that they are so good, but that there are so many of them, and if I see another broad sheet describing how Vin Diesel is “a new breed of secret agent” or whatever, I will probably snap, tear the poster into little pieces and then jump up and down on the pieces.

But that’s not what I came to tell you about. . .

At 1831 14th St. NW in Washington, DC, there is a legendary rock club called the Black Cat, which has played host to all of the luminaries of rock music over the last decade, including hundreds of bands you’ve never heard of. Sunday night, the Black Cat played host to two more such bands, Rocking Horse Winner and The Weakerthans. It was an average show, as DC shows go, and overall I had a fine time.

Before I continue. . . people need to listen to me when I say that You Can’t Call It This One Thing if It Does This Other Thing. I saw this fashion punk at the club. He was sporting a serious mohawk, a nose-ring, a leather jacket, and one of those wallet-chain thingies. I also thought that a true punk rocker would chain his wallet to his nose-ring like Jane Child did between her nose and her ear. That would be real hardcore.

Anyway, this guy looked really. . you know. . . punk, and then I looked down, and saw that Johnny Rotten was sporting sandals and white socks.Birkenstocks. And white socks.

Now, before you get all “jump-down-my-throat” let me just say that I am no fashion plate myself, and only in the past few years understood the importance of the rule against wearing a brown belt with black shoes, or really understood how embarrassing it is when your blacks don’t match. Additionally, I do believe that punk is all about the music and the message. I’m just saying that if a guy is going to go through the effort to be a fashion punk, then he should embrace all of its forms, and that includes wearing black combat boots and not white socks and Birkenstocks. You Can’t Call It This One Thing if It Does This Other Thing.

Back to the show.

I’d heard alot about Rocking Horse Winner, but had never actually heard them, so I decided to venture forth and check it out. Imagine a fuzzed out Velocity Girl, or a slightly less punk Heavenly. Now imagine you’re taking a summer road trip, driving down the East Coast at 3am the windows rolled down, and your stereo is trying to play both bands at once. That is Rocking Horse Winner. Two thumbs way up.

The other band that I saw was The Weakerthans, and I should stop right there. They were the headliners, and were pretty popular, judging from the reaction of the crowd. What I mean to say is that the crowd, rather than standing in the back of the club with its arms folded across its collective chest, moved to the front of the stage and stood there with its arms folded across its chest. Like Superchunk Mac says, “That means they like you.”

The reviewer in the City Paper said that Matt Samson’s lyrics and music were emo-esque, but much more confessional and poetic, so much so that he was forced to make up a new word to describe it — poemo. It seemed to me that the reviewer’s vocabulary was obviously surprisingly limited, because I thought of quite a few words right there on the spot, but the last time I said any of them my mother sent me to my room without dinner.

These lyrics weren’t so much confessional as whiny, and although they were poetic, it was the sort of poetry that I wrote when I was fourteen and wore all black, mated with the pseudo-intellectual posturing that second-rate rappers spew when they want to preach or keep it real. If Chuck D from Public Enemy got together with Chris Carrabba from Dashboard Confessional, that would be The Weakerthans. Not to say that Chuck D is a pseudo-intellectual, he does drop the knowledge. It was mediocre and I after a few songs I went downstairs to play pool.

But that’s not what I came to tell you about.

I came to tell you that the college kids are back in town, and I will tell you how I know.

You know how when you are out playing pool and the table is taken? What do you do? You walk over and you put your quarter down on the thing and then you know when it’s your turn to play and you take your quarter back off of the thing and play. Well, I went over to the thing to put a quarter in line to play, and there were no quarters, just an assemblage of safety pins, a stick of gum, ticket stubs and whatever. Some guy even put down his student ID.

I got so confused I just started putting down every damn thing — I emptied my pockets and put like a button, a thimble, some TicTacs, my Safeway card and knows whatever else. I also put down a quarter, just to cover all my bets, but it looked so lonely and small next to that pile of stuff that I put the little guy back in my pocket.

And that is how I know that school is back in session. These kids are so worried about someone stealing their quarters in the big bad city that they. . . I don’t know. Or maybe they just didn’t grow up in arcades and never learned about putting your quarter on the thing. If that is the case, then let me take this moment to say. . . kids, you can’t put any old thing on the thing, you’ve got to put a quarter. That’s a little free advice from me to you.

That’s all, I’m winded.