It kept getting sketchier and sketchier (this was around 10 p.m. on a Saturday) and I was alone, and I knew Haight was somewhere south of me but I didn't know how much further. I was afraid to pull out my map and look like a tourist, although I kept thinking it would be just over the next hill and I kept being wrong. So I finally gave up and when I saw a bus going back north up Fillmore I flagged it down and took it back up to Japantown where I bought some green tea ice cream. Turns out I was within five blocks of Haight.
I don't even know what's on Haight except for Amoeba Music, which was closed by that point. I doubt there was anything for me to do. I just didn't want to sit cooped up in the hotel all night though. I initially tried to go to the Luna show at the Fillmore, mostly to see opening act Rainer Maria. But after I found the theater (after looking for it on like five different street corners) it had already started and was sold out anyway. (I was originally gonna go see Wesley Willis with Reichle but he decided he wanted to do work and read about the X-Men instead. I should have asked the tall indie-rock-looking boy at the convention; I bet he would have gone, because he looked so indie rock.)
By the time I got back after wandering around the city for an hour and a half my legs were about ready to fall off. I think it was all worth it though because I got to see a Chinese man playing a drum kit in a second-floor hair salon at 11 at night. (The OPEN sign was not lit.)
Elvis surveillance: A security monitor in the shed where people handled Elvis' fan mail in Graceland.
Sunday, February 18, 2001 — 01:26 p.m.
Hey, so now's as good a time as any to tell my Lindsay Romig story. More than a year ago I tried to buy the Go Metric USA album at CD World, but when I wanted to play it on my drive home on Greenville I found that the disc inside the case was not Go Metric USA, but in fact the Minders. I had to go back and because they wouldn't just give me another CD, I had to leave my Houston address so Lindsay Romig, who worked at CD World, could mail me the actual disc. And that is how I got on the Go Metric USA guest list at SXSW 2000.
At the DRD show they dedicated a song to Lindsay's grandfather who was in the audience: "Starting to Stop."
Sunday, February 18, 2001 — 01:00 p.m.
Packy says he's making more fetus paintings. I am now really stuck on Diesel Sweeties. Here's a good one about being indie rock.
Speaking of being indie rock, my first KTRU shift is Tuesday 4-7 a.m. I have a DJ partner but I don't know who he is. I bet I will screw up a lot.
Friday I went to check out Rainer Maria at No Tsu Oh. The venue itself was a trip -- I'd never been in the No Tsu Oh upstairs before, and it's scary-cool. One wall lined with shoes from the '50s and one wall lined with crap. Scary in the fire hazard death risk. Opening bands not v. good; we preferred sitting downstairs in the coffee shop and making Trivial Pursuit poetry. Rainer Maria's vocals all harsh and they can't sing anyway, but it was a fun show.
Then last night to Rudyard's to see the Waxwings/Deathray Davies show. Kyle danced for us. There are always too many tables and chairs in upstairs Rudyard's for a real rock show so people were hesitant about getting up and getting down. (Bis, for instance, had a real problem with this.) I thought it was funny how the Waxwings guys (who were quite good and whose CD I now have) stood in the very front, in front of even us, for the Deathrays. Like, the two bands are touring together, right? You'd think they'd get enough of their music? But apparently the Deathrays are good enough and the Waxwings guys are unashamed enough to stand right up close. So very not indie rock. I like it.
Tuesday, February 13, 2001 — 01:30 a.m.
This is the error message I got when I was surfing German-language pages as translated by Babelfish:
An error, but you continue to read...
The page looked up by you gives it on the server www.unics.uni hannover.de , or.
http://sun1.rrzn.uni-hannover.de / (pseudonym) unfortunately not. We can however probably help
you, if you use the full text search over all WWW servers that university Hanover. Click in
addition up:
http://harvest.rrzn.uni hannover.de /
A service of the RRZN.
Tuesday, February 6, 2001 — 01:11 p.m.
Things that I can draw:
1. monkeys
2. art-school boys
3. milk cartons and apples with legs and eyes
4. bananas
5. monkeys
6. grrrls
7. monkeys
8. severed arms and feet
Monday, February 5, 2001 — 02:41 p.m.
And now, I will tell you the story of eating raw meat last weekend:
We made dumplings at Judy's apartment -- all kinds, because there were all kinds of eaters. Vegetarian ones, beef ones, turkey ones, and we could have made pork ones except that we never got to the pork.
We didn't know how the turkey ones should taste because none of us was familiar with ground turkey. But they seemed doughy and somehow gritty -- as if the ground turkey had been cut with flour or cornstarch or something.
I tried one. We all tried one. Then, because the dumplings tasted funny and we couldn't figure out why, we tried some more. I think I had three. Jackson had six.
Then Charlin said, "Maybe they're not cooked." She put them in the microwave and zapped them for a minute. When they came out they tasted fine.
We all felt a little sick.
Saturday, February 3, 2001 — 11:17 p.m.
Vote for some good music at Archi-Arts next weekend. I uploaded some Deathray Davies "Chinese Checkers & Devo Records", Clinton "People Power" and Pink Martini "Sympathique." Go to the party site and follow the music links.
Saturday, February 3, 2001 — 11:13 p.m.
Hey! Buy my books.
Monday, January 29, 2001 — 09:37 a.m.
Convergences:
The Deathray Davies might be performing at SXSW.
(I distinctly heard John Dufilho say "blah blah blah South by Southwest blah blah.")
Ray Davies is the keynote speaker at SXSW.
This could be interesting.
Sunday, January 28, 2001 — 09:51 p.m.
Centro-matic was dead-on last night at Emo's. It was a good show. Deathrays apparently shaped up after messy/tiny Houston set two days earlier, and the theremin was working this time.
I also got revenge on the annoying photographer who kept getting in between me and the stage. I peeled the blue "GEEK" label off my messenger bag (previously part of the phrase "GEEK HEART BREAK") and stuck it on his gear bag when he was too busy being in my way.
We'll see how my Lomo shots from the show turn out.
Saturday, January 27, 2001 — 10:39 a.m.
I went to see the Deathray Davies at Fitz Thursday night with Sophia, who made bassist dig through two boxes of shirts twice to find a medium. She also gets "roadie" and "groupie" confused, and she tried to tell them we were roadies now because we're going to see them again tonight in Austin (with Kyle) and I'm sure they were baffled.
I told her later: No, roadies pick up stuff for the band. Groupies sleep with them. (There's a big difference.)
There was also this girl puking in the parking lot after the show, right between my car and the Deathraymobile. It was righteous. Serves you right, fratkids.
Wednesday, January 24, 2001 — 01:10 a.m.
It took me an hour to get dressed and two hours to revamp my resume, but when I finally got to the job fair I realized that I did not want to work for any of the companies there. Everything in my resume points toward not a job in tech writing or corporate newsletter editing but a career in journalism, preferably at a magazine or paper where I will be surrounded by people who are smart and funny and witty. Yeah right. Please hire me.
I ghost-wrote the beginning of a cover letter for Lizzie Taishoff who really did fire it off to Dan Savage at Seattle's The Stranger, where I would kill for a job.
Dear Mr. Savage,
Remember me? You undid my bra at that dumb college journalism convention a year ago. Well, I'm graduating in May and ...
Wednesday, January 24, 2001 — 12:51 a.m.
Robert Reichle read A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again and now he wants to emulate David Foster Wallace by writing a lengthy essay on the history of the AMC movie theater company, a seemingly boring topic that he thinks he can make interesting in an essay thousands and thousands of words long. I tried to tell him that if he idolizes David Foster Wallace he should spend time trying to read and finish Infinite Jest instead. Maybe we're going to make the Infinite Thresh. Haw haw.
Sunday, January 21, 2001 — 10:38 a.m.
Oh. I had my first drink yesterday, at the reception for Ryan's recital. I got some punch but it was really a mimosa. I'm 21 but I don't drink because I don't really find anything compelling about drinking -- I don't like the idea of feeling drunk because I'm already messed up enough as it is, and I hate being around stupid drunk people, and I don't like the taste of alcohol. But I think I should ease myself into learning how to drink, at least a little. I don't like wine and I felt so unsophisticated in France (I also don't know French).
In other news, I have been a soap-making fiend lately. Me and Charlin. So far I am most proud of the lemongrass/green tea mud bar, and the "SAM" soap.
Also, I think I am going to drop down to 12 hours. I'm currently registered for 15 but I want to have time to enjoy my last semester. And I'm really just not all that keen on Victorian poetry. I'm afraid of making the professor sad -- or disappointed -- when I tell him I'm dropping but it's probably quite inconsequential.
Also: I wish that I knew German.
Saturday, January 13, 2001 — 12:49 a.m.
My magazine subscriptions for 2001, in alphabetical order:
