CONVERSION NOTICE: This is one of 250+ blogs that originally appeared on MySpace. I’ve done my best to represent it with as much historical accuracy as possible, but there are limitations. Read about it in the FAQ.

Current Mood:  restless

Nothing profound to report at the moment, kiddies. I just wanted to point out something that recently occurred to me: Morrissey has written a lot of songs with a certain song title theme. Do you see it?

1. I Am Hated For Loving
2. I Am Two People
3. I Can Have Both
4. I Don’t Mind If You Forget Me
5. I Don’t Owe You Anything
6. I Don’t Want Us To Finish (unreleased)
7. I Have Forgiven Jesus
8. I Just Want To See The Boy Happy
9. I Keep Mine Hidden
10. I Knew I Was Next
11. I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday
12. I Know It’s Over
13. I Know Very Well How I Got My Name
14. I Know Who I Love (unreleased)
15. I Like You
16. I Misses You (unreleased)
17. I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish
18. I Want The One I Can’t Have
19. I Will See You In Far-Off Places
20. I Won’t Share You
21. I’d Love To
22. I’ll Never Be Anybody’s Hero Now
23. I’m Not Sorry
24. I’m OK By Myself
25. I’m Playing Easy To Get (unreleased)
26. I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris
27. I’ve Changed My Plea To Guilty

So that’s all I had to say, really. The quote of the week, appropriately enough, is an ingenious epitaph Mozzer once proposed for himself:

“Well, at least he tried.”

CONVERSION NOTICE: This is one of 250+ blogs that originally appeared on MySpace. I’ve done my best to represent it with as much historical accuracy as possible, but there are limitations. Read about it in the FAQ.

Current Mood:  busy

What is it with August birthdays?  I am not exaggerating when I say that I know four people born on August 22nd.  That shit’s astronomical.  It also happened to be the day I… uh… became a man.  Ah yes, a whole year now it’s been.

Last night was the Deadbolt show in San Jose, and their first NorCal show in years… at least since I first heard about them.  A lot of fun, those guys.  On stage shooting sparks, breaking boards, throwing stuff, and just weird banter.  Merch included nudie magnets, sunglasses, and Tijuana-made beer holsters: worn like a pistol holster but designed to hold a can or bottle.  They were wearing and using them on stage, and come to think of it, the bassist had a bottle-opener screwed onto the front of his bass.  What a great idea!  (If only Mike’s Hard Lemonade wasn’t a twist top, I’d do something like that!)  It was a hell of a show, and you probably missed it.  But you got one more chance.  They’ll be at The Uptown in Oakland next Thursday.  And while the Bay Bridge is going to be closed that day, as your attorney, I advise you to make every effort to be there anyway.  Mayhaps I’ll see you there.

I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m a big fan of the $11 organic “milk” shakes at Cafe Gratitude.  It’s an unusual place, no question.  But if you’ve never been, I definitely recommend trying it out once.  And after all, you might spot a celeb there!  (Jamie and I once saw Kirk Hammett there.)  Anyway, I saw this article the other day.  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, assuming it’s even true.  Will it stop me from stepping up to the bar and dropping $11 and declaring “I Am Cool?”  Not a chance.

In other news, I sold one of The Twins recently.  So never again will my glorious pair of turquoise Casinos grace the stage together.  Above all else, this alone should demonstrate my commitment to shedding excesses.  This is TCB history after all.  The Twins were (at least in my mind) pretty iconic of the person I was at that time.  And I’m sure some of you early TCB fans remember them, yeah?  Well, those days are gone.  I’ve moved on.  Though what I’m starting to suspect is that my guitar habit quietly transformed into a t-shirt habit.  Yes, t-shirts.  I think I pick up at least two or three a month these days.  It will be years before I ever wear them out.  What could possibly possess me to collect them that way?  Am I that desperate to be regarded as clever?  (Yes.  Yes, I am.)  Most recently, I’ve been narrowly escaping the urge to pick up obscurities like this Road House shirt.  I look at that, and I wonder: will people get it?  Another great site is 80’s Tees… so many good ones.  I’m reminded though of how my Cobra shirt is temporarily ruined by the fact that there’s a meathead G.I. Joe movie out now.  Anyway, what the hell am I saying here?  I need to stop buying shirts.

Well now, speaking of hippy restaurants and t-shirt obsessions, the quote of the week comes from the back of the Deadbolt shirt I bought last night:

“FUCK YOU HIPPY”

CONVERSION NOTICE: This is one of 250+ blogs that originally appeared on MySpace. I’ve done my best to represent it with as much historical accuracy as possible, but there are limitations. Read about it in the FAQ.

Current Mood:  lazy

I had the T.V. on while eating dinner earlier tonight (Friday night alone… rock star!), and just as an experiment, I turned it to Fox News.  I figure, every once in a while, it’s probably good to see what the other side is saying.  Especially with all the madness going on with healthcare town halls and such.

Holy shitake!  I couldn’t last five minutes.  These people are nuts.  Granted, I watch a lot of Daily Show, but when I do, I know that it’s a comedy show.  It’s fake news.  But watching Fox News, it was like I was seeing the exact opposite and extreme view point, only it wasn’t funny, and it wasn’t presented as fake news.  It was presented as “fair and balanced” real news.  It’s no wonder the people glued to that channel are bat shit crazy.  At least the Daily Show occasionally pokes fun at the Left.  I would argue that Fox News is significantly more one-sided in its presentation.

And while their views and reasoning are… incomprehensible to me… I am trying to remind myself that they must all feel the same way about my views.  I want to say that time and progress will be on my side, and that history will look back on them and judge them ridiculous just as it does those who fought for slavery, against civil rights, against women’s suffrage, etc.  People that stubbornly stand in the way of progress, however they try to rationalize, justify, and spin it.  And I think I’m right.  But we gotta survive as a country long enough for that history to be written.  There are a lot of nuts out there, and there’s a lot of money being spent towards keeping them riled up.  Rome didn’t last forever.  Neither will we.

And on that happy note…

I’ve been on another kick of trying to organize my literally thousands of lines of notes I’ve been keeping for a decade… also known as my “to do” list.  It includes little things like this that I’ve jotted down over the years.  The quote of the week comes from a conversation I had with Jared once… from context it must have been 2003, but I don’t remember what Gore had done that spurred this conversation.  I like it just because it’s such a Jared reaction.

Benjamin: “If Gore were that animated three years ago, he would have won.”
Jared: “HE DID WIN!  Oh, you mean he would have won more.  He would have been the winner-er.”

CONVERSION NOTICE: This is one of 250+ blogs that originally appeared on MySpace. I’ve done my best to represent it with as much historical accuracy as possible, but there are limitations. Read about it in the FAQ.

Current Mood:  accomplished

Well kiddies, just got back from a pleasant weekend in Anaheim.  The House Of Blues show was our best one there yet, with a crowd that included Moz Krew, Irving, Fabi/Megan, Miles, Couch Straps’ Dan, and many more.  Saw the Lew women.  Met Balls Sr.  Visited Montebello for the first time.  Got some Claim Jumper and some decadent butterscotch pancakes.  Survived the flights.  Researched ungodly piercings with Sus and Paul.  Lost a pillow fight.  A million other things I’m forgetting to mention too.  All in only about 24 hours.  If only every day could be so eventful.  Good times.

I made the mistake of looking in on a bunch of my high school classmates on MySpace and Facebook.  Holy shitake!  The vast majority of them have goodlooking spouses and/or children in their pictures.  WTF?  I guess by now the breeders among us have gotten started.  To be expected, I suppose.  But still shocking.  Am I behind the curve?  Or did I avoid the trap?  Or…?  Meh.

So a few weeks back, I posted that parody AFSCME PSA right?  Weirdest thing… on my flight today were a ton of people wearing AFSCME shirts.  Well in other funny commercial news, who among you remembers this one:

Let’s see, what else?  I saw The English Beat with Shel, and it was amazing!  I’d never seen them before, but I was blown away.  A lot of fun, and Dave Wakeling seems like a nice guy.  Oddly enough, they were opening up for Reel Big Fish.  I don’t know how that works, but whatevs.  RBF was fun too, though we only stayed long enough to hear the one song of theirs I remember from my years with Maya: “She’s Got A Girlfriend Now.”  A while back there was an SF Symphony event where they were playing old Warner Bros. cartoons, but doing the orchestral soundtrack live along with it!  I was so sorry to miss that, but I think I had a show that night.  Am I crazy or does that sound like the funnest date?  Had I a date instead of a show.  Hmmm…

I had just been thinking about that old T.V. show “The State” when I saw on Amazon that the whole series is finally coming out on DVD!  It got me to thinking about a few other of my favorite shows that are now also available in complete DVD sets.  I’m thinking Kids In The Hall… Dr. Katz… Brisco County Jr.  Part of me wants to horde that stuff, but it seems clear enough that DVDs are on their way out in favor of Blu-Ray.  I think about the folks I used to know with massive VHS collections.  So collecting DVDs seems like a similarly losing battle.  I don’t want to buy another DVD.  As rarely as I watch the ones I got, the format will be obsolete before I get my money’s worth.  I suppose that logic applies to CDs too, but I’m much more heavily invested in that, and plus there does not yet seem to be an heir apparent.  But still… I hate to think about that.  *cringe*

If you’ve ever flown out of John Wayne Airport in Orange County, then you know that they were long ago pressured to institute a ridiculous noise restriction on flights in and out of there so as not to offend the surrounding communities.  The end result is that pilots have to execute this strange take off procedure where you go nearly straight up in the air, then coast silently for a while, and then the engines kick in again.  The pilot typically explains this process before you take off, and my flight home today was no different.  The quote of the week — nay, the month — comes from the pilot during the “coasting” period of our take off today.  Just as the engines go silent, he whispers to all of us over the intercom:

“Shh… we’re flying over rich people.”

CONVERSION NOTICE: This is one of 250+ blogs that originally appeared on MySpace. I’ve done my best to represent it with as much historical accuracy as possible, but there are limitations. Read about it in the FAQ.

Current Mood:  lethargic

Last night, I saw Blue Öyster Cult at Slim’s.  Somewhere around 15 years ago, I drove to San Francisco with Jared to see what was my first concert in San Francisco: Blue Öyster Cult at Slim’s.  Even then, I guess you’d say they were well past their heyday.  But it was also way before their cowbell fame, and I don’t mind admitting that “Don’t Fear The Reaper” was among my favorite songs in high school. They did take the stage last night to Walken-infused techno intro music, so BÖC has clearly embraced their new ironic hipness… though why they weren’t cashing in on the obvious merch opportunities (HELLO?  How about a souvenir cowbell with their logo on it?) is beyond me.

I’ve been out of commission here for a month.  It’s not that I haven’t had anything to say, but you may remember that I was questioning the value of spending too much time typing it out.  (I’m still on the fence about that.)  In the mean time, I’ve been doing alright.  Just hanging in there, weathering this shitstorm of an economy, you know.  It hasn’t stopped me from shopping though.  I’ve been shirts, and in doing so, I realized that there are websites dedicated to offering clothing that has appeared in movies.  Despite the fact that I haven’t worn a tank top in decades, I’m awfully tempted to pick up a Jack Burton replica from the insane Wing Kong site, dedicated to all things “Big Trouble In Little China.”  Interesting also (though too corny for me) is The Wanderers replica jacket.  Neato!

Oh, and somebody (anybody) I know needs to buy one of these mustache necklaces.  Almost as good as that mustache finger tattoo I saw.  Imagine being able to hold your index finger to your nose and having an automatic evil mustache.  Genius.

Before we go any further, watch this:

There have been several shows lately.  The big one for me was the birthday show of course.  Thanks to Sus, Ireland’s 32 was decorated with Kung Fu Panda balloons, inflatable guitars, party hats, and three amazing custom picture cakes (with sparkling candles)!  I was thrilled with all the folks that attended… off the top of my head, my mar and par, Sus, Anna and Sean, Deanna, Starla, Hawk, some of the Choir Boys and at least one Melano sister, Jonee (with a girl I knew from high school!), a coworker and her friends, Jen J., The Moons, and the mother of all surprises: Jared himself all the way from London!!!  Sadly, Shel was the glaring MIA, stuck across the country.  Peter was there and joined us on stage for a few songs!  We played a couple of Orlie’s originals!  Even my dad came up and played a couple of songs with us!  We ended up at Sparky’s of course, and I got to catch up with Jared till the wee hours.  I got some of the most thoughtful gifts I’ve ever received.  It was a really laid back and fun show… and honestly, probably the best birthday I’ve ever had.  Thanks again to all of you who made it what it was!

So far, being 30 isn’t so bad.  I don’t feel that different, so I guess that’s good.  Women tell me that men get better in their 30’s.  I’d been dreading that it would be the beginning of my decline.  We’ll see, I guess.

Anyway, then there was Santa Rosa… which was a tough sell again.  At least there was Denny’s.  Then this last weekend was Sacramento and Fresno.  It was fucking hot out there.  But it was fun, as always.  And as always, this particular trip came with its own bizarre stories.  Oh, and did I mention it was fucking hot?  At one point, my car’s thermometer (which admittedly likes to exaggerate sometimes) read 113°.  I’ll note that on my drive home tonight, it read more than 50° cooler than that.  Can you imagine?  50°!  I can’t stand heat like that.  It reminds me of Arizona.  Everything becomes more difficult.  It saps your energy.  And it makes people act crazy.  Believe me.

Man, I need to get out more.  I’ve been having fun lately, but I do a lot of the same things in the same places with the same people.  There’s comfort in that, but it doesn’t give you quite the same room to stretch and grow.  Time to shake things up a little.  Any ideas?

“My heart is on backwards.”

— Morrissey

CONVERSION NOTICE: This is one of 250+ blogs that originally appeared on MySpace. I’ve done my best to represent it with as much historical accuracy as possible, but there are limitations. Read about it in the FAQ.

Current Mood:  sore

I don’t know why I find this so entertaining, but I do.

CONVERSION NOTICE: This is one of 250+ blogs that originally appeared on MySpace. I’ve done my best to represent it with as much historical accuracy as possible, but there are limitations. Read about it in the FAQ.

Current Mood:  intense

T-minus 4 days, guys.  That’s four short days until I turn 30 years old.

What should I say?  Just give you the usual rundown?  I saw Big Sandy and The Legendary Shack Shakers.  I saw Star Trek and Drag Me To Hell.  David Carradine died.  Christina Ricci broke off her engagement.  I explored Fort Funston alone on a Tuesday afternoon.  I got sick and missed Colin’s wedding dinner, LTB, The Guana Batz, and A Camp.  All those consecutive days home sick allowed me to test what happens when I don’t shampoo my hair for days (erm… dandruff?) and not shave so I could see what I might look like with a beard.  During this down time, I managed to spill scalding water all over my left hand and almost had to cancel the Reno show.  I went to Reno after all, and my car broke down on the way.  Do people still read blogs on MySpace?  Am I wasting my time?  I feel like in the last couple of months, people have abandoned MySpace.  Is it true?

As I approach 30, I wish I had something shattering to say, but I don’t.  Maybe that’s the point though.  I feel like this should be some momentous occasion.  For all the dread and stress that’s led up to it… for all the societal and cultural pressure… I feel like this should be a major event in history.  But something that’s taken a long time to learn, something that I think some people learn when they become parents, something that I have just started to grasp myself… it’s that no one is really meaning parents told you, you are not Superman.  You are mortal.  Your time is finite.  You may be above average, but in the grand scheme of things, you aren’t that different or special from anyone else.  The big dreams you have in youth of being president or an astronaut or an NFL quarterback or a rock star… they don’t come true for virtually any of us, and even if they did, it doesn’t make you happier.

After 30 years, what have I learned?  The things you accomplish, the things you buy, the things you build… they’re just things.  What matters is what you are.  Or maybe what matters is that you are.  I think my happiness comes more and more just from existing.  In the long run, that promotion you got or didn’t get, that car you bought or didn’t, that city you did or didn’t move to… it’s not what makes you happy.  All those decisions can go “right” or “wrong” and either way, your happiness is ultimately dictated by what’s inside you, not what’s around you.

You know, I’m questioning the value of these blogs.  It’s nice to go back and read this stuff, but it’s not unlike scrapbooking.  What a waste of today’s life to spend it chronicling yesterday’s life.  To spend so much time trying to document and capture the past… when our time is so very finite.  It’s ridiculous.  Spend your life living your life, not documenting it for the future.  We won’t be here long enough for this record to possibly matter.  It’s hard to swallow that.  The idea that these dramatic gestures won’t echo throughout history.  That maybe every little thing I say or do isn’t worth capturing for posterity.  I used to think that it was all so precious, but it’s not.  It’s dust in the wind.  We’ll all be dead and gone before anyone has a chance to get serious use out of it.  All that matters is you and me and here and now.

So I guess put another way: I’ve learned to be humble.  Seriously, how can you not be humble in the face of eternity?  We’re all nothing.  If you’re lucky enough to get even 80 years on this planet, do want to spend another futile second of it trying to face down eternity?  Stop living for tomorrow!  I could write more, but I have a life to live damn it.  Time to take my own advice here and stop wasting my night away in front of the computer.  Who knows, maybe I’ll be so lucky as to read this when I’m 40, and I’ll laugh at myself.  When I look at what I thought I knew at 20… well, I have to laugh.

World, it’s been a great life so far.  I hope to take less of it for granted in my remaining years.  I will do my best to always strive to live in the moment, and appreciate every solitary second I’m lucky enough to be here.  I have a lot of regrets, but I’m choosing to use them as fuel to be stronger and wiser in the future.  To the people I’ve known so far, I hope that your life is better for having known me.  Good or bad, I wouldn’t be the person I am today if it weren’t for every one of you, so I thank you.  I’ve always tried to be a good and fair person.  I’ve tried to avoid hurting others whenever possible.  To anyone I’ve hurt, I’m sorry.  I didn’t always have all the answers.  I’m human, and I’ve made my share of mistakes and bad calls.  But I’ve always tried to do the right thing.

I turn 30 this Friday, and all the pressure to make a big deal of it was relieved when the opportunity to play this show came up.  We’ll be back at Ireland’s 32, where I have so many great memories of the early days of TCB.  We’ll play the Smiths and Morrissey we all love so much… and maybe some other stuff too.  It’s half birthday party and half casual TCB show.  I’m just looking forward to seeing my friends and playing a show without the usual rules.  Hope to see you there!

CONVERSION NOTICE: This is one of 250+ blogs that originally appeared on MySpace. I’ve done my best to represent it with as much historical accuracy as possible, but there are limitations. Read about it in the FAQ.

Current Mood:  warm

First things first, the trip was a big success.  We all had a lot of fun in Portland and Seattle, and the flight and logistics went off with almost no issues.  I got to spend a lot of time with friends, and a little time poking around a new city.  Portland is a nice town, and it was great to catch up with several friends I hadn’t seen in years.  The hotel was cheap and very nice.  The Wonder Ballroom was something like a big high school gymnasium.  We got over 350 people out for that one, and there were plenty of fans singing and dancing along.  We hit an all night Cajun restaurant afterwards.  The next morning, we got lost in the industrial area of Portland near the bridges and inadvertently found Dunder-Mifflin, then had brunch with my old PeopleSoft friends, and then headed out to Seattle by car.  Seattle is beautiful, and we were staying and playing right in the thick of it.  Pike’s Market.  Which I guess is sort of the Fisherman’s Wharf of Seattle.  Lots of tourists.  The hotel was expensive and tiny.  But the show was fun… 650+ people in a venue not unlike a mini House Of Blues, all rocking out to covered Smiths/Moz, New Order, Depeche Mode, and Cure tunes.  Wrestled and danced in the green room.  Ended up at some ex-grunge hangout called The Hurricane.  Ate greasy food.  Woke up and headed to Bruce Lee’s cemetery on the way to the airport.  Had we started with the NeverLost, then we probably would have never been lost.  Once we found the place though, we had a very The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly moment of trying to search through the cemetery to find Bruce and Brandon’s graves.  We did finally find them and pay our respects, and then it was off to the airport and home.  Oh, and Paul’s new nickname is “The Balls.”  I know I left a ton of the story out.  Hopefully if/when the others read this, they can fill in the gaps.

But the big news for me personally is that this trip came and went without any major issues.  It’s been a hard year, you know.  But I wouldn’t change it.  The obstacles that have challenged me have forced me to face and consider many things that I almost certainly would not have otherwise.  If I had just lived the last year exactly as I have the previous ones, and not done all of this growing and exploring… well I’d feel sorry for that hypothetical me.  I am so much better off now than I was a year ago.  On a related subject, I highly recommend you take the 20 minutes to watch this lecture on perceived happiness.  It has caused me to reconsider the way I approach many situations.

Out of nowhere, I got on this kick of thinking about old skateboard culture.  For one hot minute back in the late 80’s, I was into skateboarding.  I had a Schmitt Stixx Lucero X2 deck (similar to this one, only mine* was white and had custom hot pink grip tape).  I remember being totally into decals at the time, and going to the skate shop on De Anza and picking up decals for brands of equipment and parts that I didn’t even understand.  I just liked the designs, you know.  I went looking on the web for this stuff and found some awesome sites dedicated to late 80’s skateboarding decals (Retro Skate Stickers) and decks (Wheel Bite, Skateboard Junkie).  Going through those pages brought back so many memories.  I see logos and designs and brand names I haven’t thought of in 20 years!  Powell Peralta, Santa Cruz, Slimeballs, Independent Trucks, Nash, Jimmy’z, Rob Roskopp, T&C Surf (remember their yin-yang logo, cartoon t-shirts, and even Nintendo game?), Vision, Sims, etc.  Too many to name.  And then the clothing lines like Maui and Sons and Gotcha, shoes like Vans and Airwalks.  All this stuff I remember being popular in my neighborhood during my short skating career.  Ah well, memories.  I feel at least Starla and Jonah would appreciate all that.

* An interesting story about my Lucero… so I never really got good at skating.  I think I was always too afraid of injury.  But I still had fun with it.  Back in San Jose, I used to take it up to the local 7-Eleven with my friend Olin to play their arcade games — Double Dragon and the like.  I guess I left my board out in front next to his bike while we were in there one evening, and when we came out, someone had run off with it.  I think Dad and I drove around looking for it that night, but it was no use.  A few weeks later, my friend Jonah and his big brother and their dad were coming out of a movie theater across town (the Town & Country which used to be where Santana Row sits now).  They saw some teenage kid with a distinctive white Lucero and hot pink grip tape.  Jonah recognized it as mine and alerted his dad… who then confronted the scared-shitless teen on the spot and got my board back!  Do you believe that!?  I love that story.

So that all brings me to my philosophical dilemma.  Checking out that skateboard sticker site, I see a bunch of the decals I used to love.  In fact, I just ordered a vintage Slimeballs decal (always one of my faves) for about $20.  They don’t make them anymore.  It’s a 20-year-old sticker that someone has managed to keep pristine for decades.  Is it wrong to use it?  My first inclination is that it’s an antique and shouldn’t be wasted on my pedalboard case.  It should be preserved and cared for.  But my new “shedding materialism” side says that we’ll all be dust soon anyway, and this sticker was created with the purpose of being stuck on something.  It will bring me and my friends more joy to occasionally see it on my pedalboard case and think about our youth than it ever would bring anyone just sitting in a drawer somewhere.  Preserving it for the future is meaningless and futile.  It only becomes valuable when it is used and brings joy and it fulfills its destiny.  And on that note, I picked up a Garbage Pail Kid sticker too.  Tell me, is it wrong to use these stickers, knowing that by doing so, they will eventually be scuffed and worn away over time, lost forever?  These stickers which are among the last of their kind.  Do I have a responsibility to protect them from harm… and use?

The other day in the FiDi, I saw this slick-looking black guy in front of my building, brightly colored suit, pressed straight hair, a few gold teeth.  He was stopping people on the street and opening his jacket to reveal the jewelry he was selling.  I think I actually laughed out loud.  Could you be more of a cliché?  Do you not know that you are an extra in a 1980’s Eddie Murphy movie set in New York City?  I mean, you might as well be a burglar running around in a striped shirt and a mask.

“The odds are a million-to-one against your being one in a million.”

CONVERSION NOTICE: This is one of 250+ blogs that originally appeared on MySpace. I’ve done my best to represent it with as much historical accuracy as possible, but there are limitations. Read about it in the FAQ.

Current Mood:  busy

Well, it’s official.  As of tonight, I have only one month left of my twenties.  It’s coming up so fast.  I can remember distinctly thinking that I have a year left, six months left, three months left, two months left, and now here I am.  I have a feeling it’s all gonna go by in a blink.  I mean, all of 2009 is almost half over already.  Holy shit!  Holy shit!

I was looking through some old saved song files on my computer the other day, and looking at my Morrissey folder, I saw that the timestamp on many of those files is back in 2001.  This would have been the time that I really got obsessive about tracking down each and every song.  My point though is just to think that Morrissey’s been a huge part of my life for eight years now.  I’ve been listening for longer, but that was the time it really started becoming part of my personality.  I know that to some of you, that’s not a very long Moz obsession, or even band obsession period, and that’s fine.  Personally, I look back at 2001 and think how big a turn that was for me.  How might I have turned out without that influence?  And eight years.  That’s a long time.  I can still so clearly remember those days of discovering Moz b-sides for the first time.  Each one such a revelation.  And that was eight years ago.  Again, gone in a blink.

Morrissey turned 50, you know.  The Slim’s show was a big success, I think.  The opening bands were both great, and totally appropriate for the bill.  We played well.  The turn out was great, and it seemed like I couldn’t turn around without running into someone I know.  Damn near everyone I can remember ever coming to an SF show came out of the woodwork.  Friends I haven’t seen in months and even years.  It all added up to one of my favorite shows yet.  The radio promo was fun too, but a little rough.  We were all more nervous for that than we were for Friday!  (You can download a podcast of the radio show here.  We start at about 80 minutes in.)

The rest of my long weekend was all relaxing and recuperating.  When I hit up El Beach Burrito, I was reminded to go next door to Other Avenues (hippie grocery store).  I forget if I mentioned this place before, but they’ve got all kinds of great stuff that I can rarely find elsewhere… fake beef jerky, carob, apple butter, insanely expensive organic trail mix, etc.  For all their organic/local/green hippiness, ironically, they carry Mrs. Meyers cleaning products (owned by SC Johnson!) instead of the locally-based and infinitely greener Method brand.  But alas!  Anyway, I was tempted once again by another brand of peanut sauce, and again I was disappointed.  Tell me, is it impossible to find that Thai satay peanut sauce in a grocery store?  Can this only be had in a restaurant?

This weekend, TCB has another couple of shows, and these ones are way up north!  Those of you in the know may be aware that I haven’t been too keen on travel lately.  So this is gonna be a big trip.  I expect it will go fine though, and when it’s all over, I’ll have something to be happy about.

I’ve got much more to say, but it’s gonna have to wait till next time.  I’m busy this week, bitches!  The quote of the week comes from Morrissey, on mortality:

“People don’t last, and it’s the thinnest of lines that you step over and make that final journey.  When you’re younger, you feel that it’s a great leap to take, but it isn’t.  It’s the batting of an eyelid, and you’re no longer.  And all this brain matter that you’ve been working on for the past 50 years, perfecting, and all these elongated words that you now know and use… it comes to nothing, and you’re rubble.”

CONVERSION NOTICE: This is one of 250+ blogs that originally appeared on MySpace. I’ve done my best to represent it with as much historical accuracy as possible, but there are limitations. Read about it in the FAQ.

Current Mood: sick

If it was swine flu, it passed pretty easily.  I came down with some kind of weird fever and achiness over the weekend that left me without the energy to do much of anything.  From what I hear, a lot of folks have been battling sore throats, so knock on wood that I didn’t have that to deal with.  Tonight, it’s down to just a headache, so I’m hoping to be right as rain tomorrow.  Unrelated (I think), it occurs to me that I’ve been to the doctor more in the last year than in the previous five.  Honestly.  I think that’s partly me getting old and partly me getting paranoid.

I really just wanted to mention that the flyer is finally done for TCB’s celebration of Morrissey’s 50th birthday… a week from Friday!  This is a huge headlining gig at Slim’s, and we’ll be joined by Dead Souls (awesome Joy Division tribute) and Love Vigilantes (a New Order tribute coming all the way from Seattle).  I expect this show to be way better than our Slim’s show last year… for many reasons.  Not the least of which that it’s Mozzer’s semicentennial birthday!  Hope you guys can make it out!

Alright, bitches.  Finally… proof positive regarding the existence of Peanut Butter Boppers.  My previous evidence consisted of their brief appearance in grampa’s fridge in The Lost Boys.  But now RetroJunk has posted the commercial.  Tell me someone else remembers these things?  Delish!  And if that weren’t enough, the Mother’s website is back up, and it indicates that Mother’s Cookies should be back on shelves any day now.  A glimmer of hope in these dark times.  But alas, I’d be sick(er) if I tried to eat any of that stuff right now.  Maybe tomorrow.  Meh.  I’m off to go rest.  Nighty night…

“Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.”

— Unknown