A: I met a girl.
B: You met a girl?
A: I met a girl.
B: What's she like?
A: She's strange and beautiful, like Elliott Smith at the Oscars.

The grand experiment is almost over. After tomorrow I'm back to only going to AIR on Fridays. That means I can finally get back to doing what I really want to be doing which is drinking myself to death.

It would be. It would be so nice.

Power corrupts and max power corrupts to the max.

This goes against my current philosophy of 'put up or shut up', but Jared Hess should stop making movies. C'mon, give it a rest, man. You suck.

Here's what I've been doing for the last two weeks.

Bruno Kirby dying makes me sad.

There's a big project going on at AIR right now where we have to print 35 posters for some show in Hawaii. I was actually employed last week. I was in there every day including Saturday. Today was my day of rest and then I'm back on the job this coming week as well.

I really like getting a paycheck, but this experience has inspired me to redouble my efforts to make a living at something that isn't a "real" job.

This comic is pure magic.

NPR's Fresh Air had a nice piece on Arthur Lee today.

It's got to be a big show to get me there when I'm flying solo: the Electric Six, Wilco, Cobra Verde. Suburban Sect didn't have that power back in the day (wait, it isn't a fair comparison. I didn't drive back then. I didn't go to any shows by myself. Allow me a little artistic flourish. Thanks). Sure, they were the best band around, but they were a local band. You could see them all the time. I think I've seen them perform the second most of any band (a gold star for whoever can guess who I've seen the most. Wait, probably only my brothers would know this. It's the Frampton Brothers).

Anyway, after eight years, a Suburban Sect reunion show has the power to get me out there without hesitation. It was kind of strange to go into the 31st Street Pub, and, there by the door, are Joe Dello Stritto and Tim Thomas (and probably the drummer. Sorry, man, I don't know what you look like). That's half of Suburban Sect. I sat down at one of the tables to waste a little time and watch a little tv (they had the Cartoon Network, E!, the Golf Channel, and Comedy Central on), and who's sitting at the next table? Bob Gilbert. I've gone back in time ten years. The only thing missing were the teenagers.

The show itself started out a little slow. I'm surprised they didn't have bigger bands opening for them (or maybe those were big bands and I'm just out of touch). But by the time it was time for the headliners the place was jumping.

I ended up down front. They started off with Radio Static and the place went wild. They may have started Radio Static twice. They had a couple false starts to songs but that just gave the crowd more opportunities to cheer. Next, they played Policewoman, which was dedicated to Love's Arthur Lee who died on Thursday. From there it was just pure bliss. They did a long, jamming version of Killdeer Siren and just about every song on Margo Bird except, maybe, Instant Sunshine (Plastic Elation). Some guy in the crowd tried to get them to play Applehead a second time but they didn't oblige.

They only played four songs that aren't on their album and, I think, three of them were still originals. The second one was a mainstay of their concerts back in the day, with Tim Thomas sharing the vocals. I again got to experience that strange feeling of recognizing songs that I haven't heard in ten years. Why didn't they break up after finishing their second album?

With three songs left in the set they finally played Victoria. It was the first time I'd heard them play it live since hearing the original version by the Kinks. I always thought that was a Suburban Sect song! The chorus of Victoria is still the best part of a Suburban Sect show with everyone going crazy and showing their devotion to the Queen.

They finished it up with Gentlemen's Hour and I Can't Explain by the Who, which featured one last sing along, and then it was over. Hopefully this isn't really their final show and we'll see them again in fifteen years for the twenty-fifth anniversary of Margo Bird.

Tommy Amoeba was right, the City Paper has a good write up about the Suburban Sect show. It's much better than the Post-Gazette's.

Man, Darth Vader is such a dick.

When I'm insanely rich, I'm going to build myself an exact replica of Three Rivers Stadium and have my own private Pizza Hut Pop-up Contest every Sunday afternoon.

If you're looking for me on Saturday night, I'll probably be at the 31st Street Pub watching Suburban Sect. Yeah, you heard me, I said Suburban Sect - the greatest British band to ever come out of Pittsburgh.

All my favorite bands from the mid-nineties are getting back together. You're next, Spacehog (I didn't really get into Spacehog until a couple years ago, but I've always loved In The Meantime. So). Also, instead of going it solo, Chris Cornell should call everybody up and get Soundgarden back together to do the song for the next James Bond flick. There'll never be a better excuse.

There should be a law that when congress gives themselves a raise the minimum wage goes up by an equal percentage.

This just about sums it all up, doesn't it? From a Vanity Fair article about the 9/11 NORAD tapes:

President Bush did not grant commanders the authority to give a shoot-down order until 10:18 a.m., which - though no one knew it at the time - was 15 minutes after the attack was over.

Since Heather is going off to grad school, the rest of us have to pick up the slack at AIR, which means we now have a schedule of when we have to go in and help out at Tuesday night open studio. Last night was my first night. I'd gone to a couple open studios in the two years I've been volunteering there but this was the first time I was there in an official capacity. There were three of us working, and, I think, between the three of us we were able to almost be as good as one Heather.

It took me a little while to get the hang of it, figure out what signs to look for to tell which people have absolutely no idea what they're doing, and accept the fact that I'm one of the people in charge and I know what I'm doing. After I figured all that out, I had a good time. I didn't screw anything up too horribly.

Things were slow for the first hour but then it got pretty crazy between 8:00 and 10:00. For the last two hours, it cleared out to just the people doing massive jobs and these two girls who I ended up walking through the whole silkscreening process.

The only bad thing was that we didn't get out until 12:30 because these guys were printing a butt load of posters for a Rancid concert. But, it was cool. I could've left earlier if I had wanted to. Please come again.

I'm looking forward to my next shot at it on September 5th.

That also happens to be the night that Rancid is in town.

I guess I won't be going to that one.

I was reaching for the towel after brushing my teeth when I saw the grasshopper. I caught it between the towel and an old pillowcase. I dashed down the stairs, took it all outside, and shook them both until I was sure the grasshopper was gone. When I came back inside, into the light, I found that it was still crawling around on the pillowcase. Back on the porch, I put the pillowcase down. I could just barely see the grasshopper as it moved over the folds. I flicked at it, and, getting the hint, it hopped off into the night.