12.12.02 - 2:18 p.m.

Can everyone please start calling me A--- from the block? Thanks.

What A--- from the block has been up to: RAGIN', BRA!! i.e. inflicting severe tire damage on my eardrums. After last night's combo of Apples in Stereo & 26 Mix, there was practically blood gushing from my ears. Like Triet, I have mild tinnitus, and it only gets worse with time. I wear earplugs now, but I wish there had been hip rockers doing PSAs back in my high school days. Page Hamilton: "When I'm rocking out with surgical precision, I wear earplugs. Because a wall of sound doesn't have to mean a world of hurt." The More You Know (TM)

Anyway the Apples in Stereo were lame. The lead singer was a creepy asshole who kept making lame jokes about how their band name was "Chicken Fucker". He introduced every other song by saying "this next one's a country western ditty". Because the joke was that none of their songs were country western ditties. Get it? Get it? He said that joke like five times. Also they spent huge amounts of time fiddling around with their tunings, and all of this would have been bearable if their music wasn't just a bunch of rote by-the-numbers rock n roll "raveups" that went on too long. Openers Dressy Bessy and Oranger were more palatable. Slim's is an ok venue but they do not in fact have batting cages.

I've been thinking-- do you think music critics cop a lot of copy from each other? If I really wanted to write a review of this concert, what would my approach be? I think I'd go look up reviews of Apples in Stereo on theavclub, pitchfork, etc, and then synthesize that into some background filler, and then sprinkle my opinions on top. Is that cheap or is that just how the business works? How much research do critics do? I guess I should put my money where my mouth is and write up a real review. FAILURE IS GROWTH, FAILURE IS GROWTH. (repeat till wise or dead)

After the show we met up with andyk, angi and her new boy takaki. I get so much pleasure out of mis-remembering his name as varieties of sushi. My favorite is "unagi". I guess I have to stop doing that now that I've met him. He was quiet, but seemed pretty cool. Dreadlocks, from Tokyo, neuroscience grad student. Those are the facts that go on the back of his baseball card.

Looking forward to the weekend, but I'm starting to feel internally stagnant. Need to find some way to start growing again, progressing towards a goal. Turkey? Getting published somewhere? More tunes on Reason? Make it a trifecta, shoot for the moon.