SIDE A: Taurean Trouble / SIDE B: 100% more Toby Dutton for your buck

Yeppity yep, apart from the BIG NEWS, it's getting towards Taurean time again!!

So you better grab a texta and draw some pretty little cell bars on the calendar square that reads Saturday May 9th because you are required to come celebrate the bull, the beer, the me, the bands, the other deliciously rad Taureans and the new NEW ESTATE!!! WOO!

Old Bar shall be hosting this awesome roll-up roll-up event, with extra special guests on the night Midnight Caller and Elizabeth Pistol Club.

And... surely a pre-funk at UFHQ, or dinner somewhere (??) will be in order, so put forward your ideas and we'll get something sorted!

De Campo xx

Little pleasures, cont...

Back again at the eucalypt tree with the big hole in it, I clicked my tongue a couple times and my two friends hurried out to see what the hubbub was all about. I had been whistling along to an acoustic version of Cold Blooded Old Times prior to that and who knows maybe that encouraged them to crawl out and take a long look at me. Them two are like two winged lovers in tie-dyed t-shirts.

Really quite animated with me again this time. Scratching the part of their green head where most people have ears. Their friendliness makes me suspect that people give them treats. One is more yellow and green then the other one who is red and blue. They kept twisting their heads and looking at me like a dog trying to make sense of things. The red and blue one flapped its wings and flew to an upper branch where it teetered on skinny branches and munched on these little tiny fruits.

A big guy in a loose fitting muscle shirt showed up and parked it on the bench nearby while his fat blonde Labrador went down to the river. I left the birds eating the bark off the tree and strolled passed the huffing and puffing dude on the bench, who I recognised as Gary Lyon, the ex-football guy. I almost told him about the birds, but he didn’t look too happy. He was sweaty and despondent. His dog was immersed in the Yarra barking at him.

Little pleasures

The rainbow lorikeets who live in one of the trees at the park where I stroll on my lunchbreak are back and almost started talking to me today. I repeat: they were gone, but now they’re back and almost chatty.

Unstoppable Forces @ Summer Tones

I have very little recall regarding Mistletone’s fun-filled Summer Tones music party. The guy who protects patrons by keeping recalcitrants at bay wouldn’t let me into the kitchen to have a pizza at the end of the night. Not to worry De Campo and I moseyed over to the 24 hr Mcdonalds. Sadly it was closed. There were a number of people milling there for whatever reason. I guess they were surprised as we were that it was shut. We walked to Acland Street and found a burger joint. The streets were rather quiet kind of refreshing when you consider the state of Brunswick street these days. I fell asleep back at our hotel room midway through eating my Mexican-themed cheeseburger with guacamole and jalapenos. I woke up this morning and ate it cold. It was still pretty good though I wouldn’t give it more than two stars. I had some of de Campo’s too because she hadn’t finished hers either. She didn’t find it was very good cold. It was thoughtful of her to put them in the refrigerator and told her as much.

We got our things together, showered and tried to become more human. We talked about the wild night we just had. I remarked on my garbling remarkably incoherent self. I vaulted on stage during the Panel of Judges set and was just as quickly ordered off by their none-too-amused singer. Probably a good move in retrospect. I did the same thing at Applecore last weekend during Actor/Model and flipped the keyboard switch on Ricky’s guitar pedal, the sound cut out prematurely ending their set.

Unstoppable Forces DJ’ed when the doors opened yesterday. Feisty Jes Cogger who DJs in the front bar on weekends, showed up to give us moral support, which was lovely. The essential Carla (‘oh my darling, hot, hot Steve’) Thomas was our entourage. The decks were located at the top of the stairs of what is one of Melbourne’s most excellent drinking rooms. We had a great time and we played a lot of sweet tracks. From memory we spun Silver Jews’ Party Barge, Travelling Wilbury’s Handle with Care, De Campo played three in a row, Slumber Party Madeupmymind, She & Him’s something or other, Eddy Current Suppression Ring’s Wrapped Up, then I played three in a row, while De Campo went to get Coronas, Flying Burrito Bros’ Burrito #2, a cool live version of Pavement’s Father to a Sister of a Thought and Kath Bloom’s We didn’t do this to you. My memory becomes hazy after this, I can remember what we played I just can’t remember the exact order they were played in. Under the Blacklight by Rilo Kiley, Royal Trux’ The Spectre, Spoon’s Don’t You Evah, Billy Squier’s In the Dark, Tommy Roe’s Sweet Pea, Straight down to the Bitter End by Yo La Tengo, Lilliput’s Igel, The Breeder’s Tipp City, Cotton Fields by CCR, Rebound by Sebadoh, Sunday Girl (French) by Blondie (that was for Carla) and again Rilo Kiley with Smoke Detector.

The Treetops started playing, we left the turntables smoking and took our gear back to the nearby hotel and drank some peach vodka with Jes and Carla and watched American Idol. The Novotel is not a hotel I would recommend. Between the hotel and the pub was a park and we lounged there before heading back to the club to watch Kes Band.





I love the Kes Band, but this set seemed to plod more than usual. I complained about this to Simon Grounds, a man who knows about this stuff and Simon said you got to hand it to them they came with a plan to play turgidly and they stuck to it. I was just pissed that the music didn’t make me dance. I shot a query at one of the Mistletone directors about liquid compensation for our amazing DJ set and he pointed me upstairs to the green room where I saw Dan Deacon eat the largest chunk of guacamole I have ever seen. Just this huge blob of guac teetering on this strip of red capsicum. Subliminally I suppose, guacamole would play an important part in my choice of eats throughout the rest of the day. Quesadillas for dinner and the aforementioned burger at 2am.

Three stages and hundred or so bands. The basement bar was home to the best most-debauched action and out of some real good ones, I think the Twerps’ set was my favourite. I’m totally smitten with those guys. Last night was a fricking riot.

OMG!!! JCVD!!!!

OMG!!! JCVD!!!!

It’d be easier to borrow a tent because I’d prefer not to drive if I don’t have to

Amelia

Haha!

That would be ace! She just has to work out how to get her parents’ tent between now and then

Cheers

He wants to meet her for lunch

Gnarlikins-a-go-go!!

She wanted a bird then she wanted a forest with birds flying in the distant vista

HAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Did you find a golden ticket?

I threw mine up

You should get the album image as a tattoo

For brekkie

Hugh was pretty hunky wasn’t he

That sounds terrific. She is an absolute hoot.

I decided to follow Party Barge with Traveling Wilburys

Tell her to hold up, she’s next in the queue!

McGuane Remembers Updike

It’s surprising how quickly a writer’s death provides a seismic reading for anyone who had taken an interest in his work. The news of Updike’s death really startled me; he had written so well and so importantly for so long and until so recently that his absence is hard to contemplate. Something is missing. I had a spell of indignation as I thought of the nonentities who won the Nobel Prize while he was eligible through being alive. Now he’s disqualified! Terrible.

I met Updike a few times and today have been looking back on those encounters, baffling one and all. Harry Crews and I had won awards at the American Academy and found ourselves pressed against the wall of a large room staring across substantial space at a large collegial group of Northeastern writers who seemed to know their way around the place. Crews was content to remain, but I wandered haplessly into no man’s land, where Bernard Malamud felt sorry for me and led me to the group in the middle of the room, where he introduced me all round, and to John Updike, who peered at me and said, “We don’t know who you are.” Well, I got over it and kept reading Updike, admiring his daring, the high finish of his prose, his extraordinary erudition, and, sometimes in the face of some quite nasty critical attention, his undaunted commitment to his work. As a regular and accessible commentator on art and literature, he hasn’t had an equal since Edmund Wilson. It is impossible to imagine a less complacent major writer.

I don’t know if some assonance is suggested by noting that I felt the same sort of blow at the death of Rabbit Angstrom, an unwillingness to let him go. I sent Updike a note to this effect and got a warm reply in which he expressed some mystification that everyone was so attached to Rabbit. My translation suggests he wasn’t comfortable with this august tetralogy towering over the rest of his work. But that’s what happened.

Thomas McGuane, January 28, New Yorker

Rant from H sponsored by Miss Lonelyhearts

Speaking of savagery with the pen, I am finally reading the copy of "Lucky Jim" that you got me. I plan to continue to make up my own book clubs. This will be paired with Martin Amis's "The Information". The other pairings include the Jim Harrison collection I got from you tied with McGuane's "Nobody's Angel". This sub-sect of the club will be entitled "Writer's that Moritz loves who are deeply indebted to Hemingway, who by the way, Moritz can't stand". The next suite will consist of German writers (I always read Russian or Latin writers) that wll involve Kafka's "The Trial" and Thomas Mann's "Death In Venice and other collected stories". This will alternately be known as "Fassbinders Mix-tape". The final book club will consist solely of Melville's "Pierre, Or the Ambiguities". I am going to the coast this weekend, and always carry a Melville novel that I have absolutely no intention of reading.

- H

extract from forthcoming novel

"No compunction whatsoever to relieve myself with a claw hammer.
A feeling I was pretty unaccustomed to!"

Tic Tacs are inferior in every way

WHAT?

In Bruges got a nod for best original screenplay. That frigging disgusts me.

Man, I’m struggling a bit with Oscar, not being Dominican and shit. My inability to be held captive by its mercurial energy gave me horrible night sweats last night until I realised it was only the full moon, but still.

Year in Reading

Books I’ve read in sequence, and in brackets, how I’d rank them. Below that is a short spiel on each.

Hey Jack by Barry Hannah (20)
Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman (26)
Armies of the Night by Norman Mailer (1)
Norwood by Charles Portis (6)
Panama by Thomas McGuane (13)
Reinhardt in Love by Thomas Berger (2)
The Smoking Diaries by Simon Gray (26)
Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov (11)
The Loved One by Ev Waugh (29)
Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis (10)
Mao II by Don Delillo (28)
Couple of Comedians by Don Carpenter (14)
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail by Hunter S Thompson (16)
Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S Thompson (17)
Anagrams by Lorrie Moore (5)
Like Life by Lorrie Moore (18)
A Cool Million by Nathanael West (20)
CATCH 22 by Joseph Heller (22)
Ask the Dust by John Fante (12)
Born Standing Up by Steve Martin (24)
Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (4)
Ninety in the Shade by Thomas McGuane (3)
Josh Hartnett Definitely Wants to do This by Bruce Beresford (25)
Gulcher by Richard Meltzer (15)
Professor of Desire by Philip Roth (30)
The Summer he Didn’t Die by Jim Harrison (7)
The Boat by Nam Le (27)
This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff (8)
Keep the Change by Thomas McGuane (9)
Black Postcards by Dean Wareham (23)
A Good Day to Die by Jim Harrison (19)

Hey Jack by Barry Hannah
Very good novella about a doctor of questionable repute. Full of the trademark Hannah razzle-dazzle.

Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman
Didn’t finish it. Hell I lived it when I was 12.

Armies of the Night by Norman Mailer
Mailer, in incendiary 3rd person, takes in a Vietnam war demonstration. Causes a ruckus. Thrown in the slammer. Even more than Hunter S Thompson, Mailer dishes verbs like fists, and his furious prose cuts through diamonds. Exudes a heavyweight literary scholarship that doesn’t seem to exist anymore.

Norwood by Charles Portis
Angel of a book with a knucklehead charm.

Panama by Thomas McGuane
The crawling out of the ass of frozen elephants now behind him, ex punk star Chet Pomeroy retires to Key West with a coke-affected brain that forgets simple things like what his dog’s name is and whether or not his Daddy perished in a Michigan fire. Wasn’t as good the third time through; still a fav though.

Reinhardt in Love by Thomas Berger
Comic immortality, set in Cincinnati, among the bureaucrats, thieves, plagiarists and Black Panthers, a town Mark Twain said he’d like to be when the world ends because it’s twenty years behind. Standing heroically amongst it all: Carlo Reinhardt.

The Smoking Diaries by Simon Gray
Fascinating perspectives on life and art and getting old from the pen of the late playwright.

Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov
Slim and spellbinding. As I recall, the final scene in the dark is extraordinarily vivid and suspenseful.

The Loved One by Ev Waugh
Regrettable, as California must have been for Waugh.

Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis
Biblical in its delicious spearing of celebrity culture. Loved it.

Mao II by Don Delillo
Didn’t work for me at all.

Couple of Comedians by Don Carpenter
Funny borderline psychotic world of a platinum-selling comedy/singing duo. Narrator is the deadpan and his partner is the genius. Carraway to his Gatsby.

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’71 by Hunter S Thompson
Thompson’s last great book. Mighty.

Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S Thompson
Oral biography using Plimpton’s Paris Review technique (see also definitive books on Truman and Edie).

Anagrams by Lorrie Moore
Lorrie writes the best brainiest, wittiest single women around. This one shall we say has an active imagination. Tells a lot of elaborate jokes ad the strike rate is damn near 100 per cent. Has drawn comparisons to Sally Bowles and I can see that.

Like Life by Lorrie Moore
More stories about bracing wit as tonic for life’s eternal disappointments

A Cool Million by Nathanael West
Inventive whimsy of misfortune befalls main character in his quest for bourgeois respectability

CATCH 22 by Joseph Heller
A reader-friendly Gravity’s Rainbow

Ask the Dust by John Fante
Starving for literary prestige in Thirties L.A.

Born Standing Up by Steve Martin
Starving for stardom in Sixties L.A.

Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Devil descends or rather ascends on Moscow in early Twentieth Century, terrorising literary mag editors, theatregoers, and accountants with elements of the dark supernatural. Accompanied by a seven foot jockey and an enormously fat cat with a cold black heart made of shit. On the ‘Amazing Race’ a few weeks ago contestants went to Bulgakov’s apartment as part of their scavenger hunt.

Ninety in the Shade by Thomas McGuane
A second read of this ensured its entry into the echelon of my favourite books. Never would I have thought a novel about fishing guides could be so essential.

Josh Hartnett Definitely Wants to do This by Bruce Beresford
Reading this, I recall being struck by its similarity in style and thought to the Simon Gray diaries, only to discover, in these pages, that Beresford read it and hated it! Curiously indirect bit of self-loathing perhaps? This book is a classic.

Gulcher by Richard Meltzer
Series of short, random essays from one of my writing heroes.

Professor of Desire by Philip Roth
I hated this book!

The Summer He Didn’t Die by Jim Harrison
I loved this book!

The Boat by Nam Le
Auspicious debut. First story is the piece de resistance, though I’ve yet to finish the rest.

This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff
Seriously great.

Keep the Change by Thomas McGuane
Wonderful book. The scene where Joe shows up to meet the lawyer covered in cologne samples and the reaction he gets is so priceless it had me laughing out loud on the tram. You really can’t ask for more than that first thing in the morning.

Black Postcards by Dean Wareham.
Like I needed an excuse to pull out my Galaxie 500 and Luna albums. As good as the Steve Martin book (another honest book about the implications of being an urbane artist), or any of Dean’s musical achievements.

A Good Day to Die by Jim Harrison
Hillbilly rewrite of Jules & Jim. Narrated by cultured, reckless feller. Disturbing and heartbreaking.

4 Days and 4 Nights in Daylesford

photos by de campo

Year in Music

Albums I reviewed for Plan B this year, in order of preference, accompanied by tantalising review extract.

CCR reissues
“Creedence is Creedence is Creedence, Man! Shall I continue? Sure!” (And by golly he did..)

Softboiled Eggies, Try it Again
“Floating on a galaxy of warm, downbeat poly-rhythms, crush-worthy singer Janet does Mari Elliot dub reggae, Raincoats’ covers and tears up future dance parties with a triumph called Can You Send Blame? “

Flavour Crystals, Ambergris
“At first I wanted the songs to slide off the rails a bit, but not anymore. I’m cold. I don’t want to be surprised. Just soothed.”

Yellow Moon Band, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World
“Needs a sticker on it that says, ‘Now you’re jammin’!”

Inner Space Soundtrack, Sven Libaek
“Wes Anderson plucked this rare pearl from the clamshell of soundtrack obscurity and plugged a few cuts into his Steve Zissou picture where they fit like an old pair of flippers.”

Destroyer, Trouble in Dreams
“The mood is caterwaul casual and the message is the world is fucked.”

Beaches
“Pronounce Bitches like a louche Mexican and there you have it: Beaches, a stone-cold classic.”

Atlas Sound, Let the blind lead those who can see but cannot feel
“The tall, skinny deer caught in the strobe lights of Deerhunter’s dazzling art-rock, singer Bradford Cox brings seven layers of stoned noise to this, his official debut under Atlas Sound (a name he’s recorded with since he was 12).”

Boyracer, Flickering B+W
“Like the motto stencilled on Charley Varrick’s van, Boyracer are one of ‘the last of the independents’.”

Pivot, O Soundtrack my Heart
“A stunning assault on the John Carpenter precinct of electronic rock...minimalism so absolute they named a vodka after it.”

The Lord Dog Bird, The Lord Dog Bird
“When done this well, 4-tracks speak truer to our messed-up existence than any other method — additional tracks just seem superfluous.”

Taman Shud, Goolutionites and the Real People
“Give some top grade acid to an environmentally-conscious hard rock band whose name means ‘The Ultimate End’ and suddenly all they want to do is save trees.”

Castanets, In the Vines
“Ringing guitar tones hang in the air like vultures in some weird burrito western.”

Part Wild Horses Mane on Both Sides, Bataille de Battle
“The ‘War and Peace’ of scorching flute skronks.”



Gable, 7 Guitars with a Cloud of Milk (Loaf)
“Attention Deficit Twee (ADT) from Paree, sporting a deadpan melancholee.”

Spectrum, Milesago
“You won't find any Neu-inflected space trance here, only an earthy Mike Rudd imploring you to 'Do the Crab' (from the ten-minute, four part 'Sideways Saga') with a humour that’s hard to decode.”

KES Band
“It's like Raymond Carver without Gordon Lish. He needs an editor.”

Star Spangled Banger
“Often likened to Bonzo Dog Band, who, if I’m not mistaken, are today’s musical equivalent of a stop sign no one pays any attention to.”

Renfro
“She said it sounds like The Blow on a bad day, I said it's not that good.”

Grand Salvo, Death
“A neat concept from Down Under about a bear, a bird, a rat, a rabbit and a hunter. Still it’s hard to care about a dying rat. And why no marsupials?”

The Bronx, The Bronx
“Angus Youngish riffs, but more relentless than AC/DC ever were. Gives me a reason to be unhappy about a lot of stuff I should care a lot less about.”

The Condors, Wait for it
“That band from that seaside bar who you kept begging to play Two Tickets to Paradise the night you got totally shitfaced and busy with the Mother of your ex-girlfriend's fiancé, who walked in and saw you all over Mother with a bottle of beer foaming in your hand.”

The All New Adventures of Us, Best Loved Goodnight Tales
“Northampton’s very own Friends. The Ross of the group mourns a world gone sad (“Does anyone remember laughter?”) and makes dreadful admissions (“I know a girl with two grazed knees and I like her”), while the others marshal a fearlessly militant twee.”

Alberta Cross, The Thief & The Heartbreaker
“My advice is dump those shitty Ryan Adams’ records in the river and try on some Tom Petty (but don’t whiten your teeth!).”

I’m listening to New Order with my shirt on backwards!

Only I don’t know it yet. When I go outside for a walk I will attempt to put my iPOD in my breast pocket and I will discover there’s no breast pocket nor is there an alligator insignia down the front. That is when I will realise that my shirt is on backwards. I will quickly duck down a secluded side street and remedy the situation. Then I’ll ask myself why not one person had alerted me to this fact. I will wonder, am I that unworthy of people’s attention. A solitary tear will drop from my eye.

Define twee

Literary-minded, musically-spineless and the singers are usually these awfully tedious people who feel superior because they’ve read all of F Scott Fitzgerald’s books. Oscar Wilde said people are either charming or tedious. So basically what I’m saying is you have Jarvis Cocker at one end and some wispy dude in spectacles with a trenchant head cold giving cardigans a band name on the other. Their fans are interchangeable so a night out can be a humourless soul-sucking disaster. I imagine them to be very good at trivia. Twee has become a pejorative for mediocre bands of a certain style that royally suck. Probably the best example of twee is a Melbourne band named after a seasonal mammal.












not twee

The bombastic cries of a man living too long in Sasquatch country

Steve Malkmus review

Guest Playlist 18th November Night of the Assassins 3CR (The Moritza Midnight Special)

Freeway - Beaches
Everything with You- The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Song for Tiki- Lindsay Low Hand
Kindling for the Master (Polmo Polvo Remix)- Stephen Malkmus
Operation- Deerhunter
Alchemy- Richard Lloyd
Hey! Little Child- Alex Chilton
What's Going On - Jungle Brothers
Strange Victory, Strange Defeat- Silver Jews
Let's Hang On- The Four Seasons
Life in Suburbs- New Estate
Place in the Sun- Triffids
Elevation- Television
When a Whiskey Buys a Whiskey- Craven Fops
Fuck Books- Times New Viking
Minimum Amount of Fuss- Flywheel
Agoraphobia- Deerhunter
Ooga- Ooga Boogas
Bad Sneakers- Steely Dan Katy Lied
The Analog Kid- Rush
Be Careful, Baby, Be very Careful- Dory Previn
Viaduct- The Pastels

Saturday between 11.30am and five o' clock

Got on my bike and took Mia’s birthday gift back to the shop where I bought it from (she already had the gift apparently, at least that’s what her husband said even though he thinks I don’t trust him, but I do) asked the clerk if they had the new deerhunter in, not for Mia, for me (for my forthcoming bike ride to Suzy’s school fair) they didn’t, so I tried somewhere else, they didn’t have it there either, so I bought Mia something from somewhere else and thought screw it, I wanted deerhunter, I needed it and got on my bike and went to Polyester Records, sun on my face, wind at my rear (note I said “at” not “out”) and they had it by George, they had it. Went home and loaded it on iTunes, put a bloody mary in me, conversed with Zelda Fitzgerald, Noel Coward and Chuck Paulahnik, the drink was multi-faceted with a lot of different types of quality in it, I appreciated the effort that went into making it and said as much, hopped back on my bike, strapped with an updated iPOD, the music was so warm and nice in my ears, the tunes lightening my lobe, the bike path led me right to Suzy’s school, though Toby had to wave me down as I actually shot past it, came back, parked it, walked out on the artificial grass where stalls were assembled, Suzy’s friend Shay was there, toby, her and I went and ordered a bottle of champagne, it was the only option really, beer would have been better but the person manning the booze tent organised a bunch of winter beer that’s best to sip, thinking about it now makes me thirsty, gee, my writing is awfully sensual, Toby handed me a birthday gift in the form of The Ultramagnetic MC’s Critical Beatdown on vinyl, my goodness, an erudite selection, thank you Toby, Dave Reeder then walked up, he had his shades on you could tell he’d been dealt a crazy blow the night previous and it turns out Go Genre Everything and copious booze were behind it, Mia and her husband, plus Sadie and her followers turned up after that, I exchanged pleasantries with them all, informed Mia I did not have her present with me even though I bought it less than an hour earlier (left it at home), and then I had to jet, bid farewell while Mia was singing a couple of numbers, headed back, lost my bearings in Clifton Hill, retrieved them on wellington street, took a right at the Tote, turned left on Smith Street, parked my bike there and walked to Mario’s Pizza parlour, my final destination, people were outside caning beers, inside Jane Dust was belting her lungs out in her own big-hearted way, her shiny Charlie’s Angels hair, wavy and terrific, pearls in her ears, by the time I squeezed myself up front and said hello to her sissy, who hugged me and asked why I was sweaty, her last song finished, ugh, went up and chatted to Clare Moore, who was there with Kaye Patterson, apparently a smashing singer, the word on the street is they have formed an act called Patterson and Moore, they expressed concern the name might sound too much like an accounting firm and they’re right but I didn’t say anything, at the end of the day the music will be what matters I looked down my shoulder and wouldn’t you believe I was standing next to a table full of free pizza, so I used my position to an advantage and had a slice! It was good pizza, Phillippa who was standing next to the pizza too, said that she used to order the Volcano when she worked at the Tote and I could understand why she did when that one came out because that one was particularly tasty with hot salami and capers, I was eyeing the merchandise next to the pizza, some nice gatefold vinyl of the ooga boogas who were launching their album with Jane Dust, a personal friend of mine as support and plenty of free pizza. I had my eyes more on the pizza than the music, but the pizza was too hot so I talked to the merch girl about the merch and she was from Virginia but I didn’t figure that at all, until she said so and I said I’d liked to hear the music first before I buy the album and then the Ooga boogas started playing and the pizza was no longer hot, but the music sure was and I turned to Elizabeth, my fingers covered in grease and said this is the kind of show where they don’t give you any serviettes and you just wipe your hands on your face. She said that good, huh? I nodded with a big ole grin. Bought the vinyl, but I think I’ll give it to Mia and take back the other thing I bought her.

Me circa 11am tomorrow

"THEY...CALL...A-LA-BA-MA...THE...CRRRIMMMM-SON TII-IIIIIDE."