Digging around for some rainy day music today. I love the rain. Too bad Fresno doesn’t get much of it. A genuine thunderstorm complete with torrential downpours today. Just Desserts, Mercury Rev and Radiohead on heavy rotation, spiced up with a little Cure here and a little SleepyD there…

And maybe finish it off with some Tom Waits. Perfect weather for cuddling up with a cup of tea… or cocoa… I think I’ll do just that…

I managed to record 3 sets at Fred’s tonight: Deadbillys, The Vultures & Cattie Ness. Such a great ensemble necessitates a great event: it was Kevin’s birthday (bassist for Cattie Ness). Great show, great recording, great video. The mixing and editing will be another project for this weekend.

Now I’m back home, trying to unwind before I pass out. I’m using my Dad’s old George Harrison vinyl to help me out. I’m glad I have it now. I guess I never mentioned my own reaction to the passing of Harrison: even though I was about 6 or 7 years too late to be of the generation which could properly appreciate them, I do recognise the genious and innovative influence of the Beatles and their derivative members. John will always be my favorite, but I have always preferred George as my #2. I always found Paul McCartney to be a rather useless member outside of the fold. I have not liked any of Paul’s solo work. Harrison has managed, on the contrary, to produce a sizable body of meritous solo material unseen among any member (though had he lived long enough I’m sure John would have outdone him).

So I guess my point is that the only two Beatles I actually thought were worth their worship are gone. I have been missing John since I first heard him. I miss George. There’s my eulogy. I wish it didn’t read so shallow and trite, since I meant it to be my only sincere tribute I plan to offer. O well…

And now why is it that I am lately in this mood where I feel I need to fuck everything that moves. I must have been spoiled at David’s last weekend, and now I lack an adequate outlet, combined with the fact that I’ll probably lack said outlet for another coupla weeks… Must find remedy…

Tired. Must pass out. Must not watch late night network TV. Must not beat off more than once…

Nice rainy day. Is it just me, or is Fresno way too tolerable lately? This is supposed to be the lazy little city where rents are cheap and the weather makes you stay indoors all the time. I have found that the past two weeks have had some of the best weather I remember here. I hope that doesn’t mean my rent will be going up…

I got my tickets to see Siouxsie and the Banshees next month at the Warfield. How convenient that I have a significant other there to not only shack me up at no charge, but accompany me there as well…

The first time I saw Siouxsie live was at the Sacramento Crest Theatre as the Creatures back in 1998 on the Creatures/Cale Nohow On tour. They kicked increadible ass. I saw them the next year at Palookaville in Santa Cruz. This will be my first time seeing the whole trio including Severin (whom I confess is my favorite, still). Yay. They’ve always been my most obsessive musical fixture, if not necessarily my favorite band. Speaking of which, I finally have my Siouxsie trading page up. Just in case you haven’t been checking there (and considering the low traffic, you probably haven’t.

Sundays aren’t my favorite days… Miss you, baby.

Aside from almost emptying my email inbox and getting some more data entered into my FileMaker music databse last night, I spent precious little time on the computer. Instead, I got a rare bit of reading in, polishing off the latest issue of The Economist and revisiting a book which has remained half-read for close to a year now.

I lounged at Revue for a while and then decided to make a rare appearance at one of the few local pubs I’m actually willing to visit these days. After a couple hours of watching the drunks make fools of themselves, I decided I’d had enough of that for the next few weeks again.

Last night I did discover that my lack of attendance at said pubs has made me fall behind on the local scene, and I found that my pending recording job for Fastback 69 has been dropped, but there’s still a chance for a cozy little goth show this Friday. Now to spend the next 72 hours deciding what to wear…

A nice weekend with David, during which I managed to catch The Shroud live at The Starline and record it on both video and audio, got my satellite system installed (try getting me out of the house at all, now), and generally lounged around with David and overate.

Cattie Ness plays their last show tomorrow…

Another sleepless night. I don’t know why, but I’ve been having incredible trouble sleeping lately. It’s not that I don’t need the sleep - it usually catches up with me by Thursday or Friday, by which time I’m falling asleep at the wheel on the drive home…

I think it’s just all the things on my mind lately. Lots of changes in the near future can always have a profound impact on my subconsious anxiety levels, and usually the first thing to suffer is my sleep. It’s not like there are any stresses so profound that I’m unhappy because of them - on the contrary, I think it’s more of an anticipation type of anxiousness. Being up at 4 AM and making a useless blog posting because my mind won’t shut off isn’t necessarily a bad thing…

As I was driving home from David’s Sunday, I approached Fresno as wildfires were burning in the mountains. The sky above the city was turned this surreal orange from the setting sun and the huge blankets of smoke in the upper atmosphere. It was an amazingly beautiful sight, if a little eerie. “Mecca” by Omicron began playing on my iPod at the same time, and it added that final touch which gave me the chills. I decided to add the song as my music of the moment . If nothing else, it makes this entry more than the useless ramblings of an insomniac.

I thought I’d break the nearly 2-months’ silence to describe the happenings these days…

I had a new baby go live this morning: the new website for my favorite local Fresno musicmen, Superfluid Helium 3. It’s a true labor of love, and I’m pretty pleased with some of the new webdesign ideas I’ve learned (with the helpful hand of David over my shoulder some of the time). Please do go and do buy their new CD, it’s the best 70+minute collection of tunes I’ve rotated since Lateralusback in 2001.

My web-surfing habits have changed, and thus I’ve updated my Links pages. I’ve been as busy as ever at work, and I start my next class next month at Skyline College. Then in the Fall I start the real meat at SFSU.

The weather in San Francisco has been miserable the past two months. Only one or two days of respite between heat wave after heat wave. I actually want to go back to Fresno as much as I can this summer to enjoy the A/C and swimming pools…

All the time I’m trying to galvanize my discipline and save money. It’s only working some of the time. I’ve slowed by Ebay habit to a trickle, and I’m taking my lunch to work every day. I just still can’t seem to give up my morning Starbucks, though…

I’ll try to update more than once in May.

Where on Earth is this darned year going? Before I know it it’ll be time to start planning our trip to the East Coast for Thanksgiving. In the mean time, we just booked our weekend in Maui to be present for my sister’s wedding, coming up at the end of summer… Not an interesting flight, I’m sure, but it should be nice to have some excuse to visit a state I otherwise just assumed I’d skip on the checklist.

What is it about guys in bands? Even the ones who I’d find hideously boring in any other context make me flutter when they’re holding an instrument… Must be some guitar-phallus connection… Not that the Athena boys wouldn’t give me a stir with or without the axes.

And finally, why is it that every city on earth seems to have a better music scene than San Francisco? I miss Fresno these days, especially when I’m in the mood for a local live show by some bad band I’ve never heard of (or even a good but horribly unpopular one I have heard of), and then I remember that SF doesn’t allow those.

I started listening to The Cure when I was 10 years old. My sister had bought a few tapes by them, and within a few months I had approriated them and they were on endless rotation in my little cassette player. I was in love. Robert Smith was my hero. The Cure saved me from a possible life as a bland suburban white boy. The Cure have influenced me probably more than even I realize, aesthetically, emotionally, musically and behaviorally.

Mr. Smith has often said he dislikes the way in which Cure fans often tend to worship him and dehumanize him. For some reason, I continued to do this long after most fans of my generation had stopped in the mid-late 90s. The Cure had failed us my moving on from their usual “profound” recordings to music which was more self-indulgent, rambling and uncharacteristic. I gave The Cure many second chances before finally shedding my illusions of eternal devotion sometime shortly after the most recent album, “The Cure” was realeased. I thought I understood long ago why Mr. Smith meant when he said “please stop loving me… I am none of these things”.

But perhaps a later song is more appropriate. Understanding it allows us to enjoy the positive side of the end of a long relationship without necessarily harming the long-standing devotion I will continue to have to who The Cure were and what they continue to mean to me. I think I appreciate The Cure more than ever now that I have stopped expecting the undeliverable from them from here on out.

Ultimately, I’ll probably still be buying every new album Robert Smith puts out, even if it includes duets with Madonna and recordings of his diarrhea. I probably won’t get my money out of them, but the payment will be for what The Cure have given me through the years. The enthusiasm has waned, but they are still there, and still important.

Siouxsie is my hero.

One problem with enjoying something which I truly love is that it leaves me rather jaded about enjoying much else in the world in its absense…

Cases in point:

I love reading Poppy Z. Brite. Her prose transports me to a world where every facet of her characters are as vivid and colourful as if they were seated beside me relating the details of their lives, loves, and desires. Her books and short stories don’t really contain anything profound or important on a social or philosophical level, but I truly and deeply fall in love with her characters. They are as intimately familiar to me as the people I’ve met and spent my time with any other day of my life. With their addictions and dysfunctions and mistakes and also their virtues. When the story ends, it’s incredibly hard for me to move on to another book, magazine or other literary consumable: they all seem worthless and unimportant by comparison.

There are a select few musical acts whose sounds can make me gush with pleasure and emotional release… An incomplete list includes Siouxsie, Interpol, Tool, The Cure, Faith & the Muse, Information Society, and New Order… It sounds like a lot of bands, but in fact it’s a select grouping of special musical acts which affect me like no others. I’ll often flirt with other sounds here and there, but if I sit quietly through an entire selected album by one of the aforementioned artists, I’m ruined for music for a day or so… It all sounds like trashy noise, devoid of emotion or importance.

I have the most wonderful man in the world to call mine. Like an old song, the very thought of him makes me smile and think of how happy he makes me. It’s like every detail of my life is laid out and vulnerable to someone who proceeds to treat it gently and carefully; and nurture me when I need it and avoid me when I need that more… It’s hard to be around people in this world when I’ve spent a lot of time with David - he’s so much better and more easy to love than anyone else. His love fits me like a glove and it takes lots of reflection to understand that my inabilities to communicate well with other people, build friendships, or spend much time with anyone else, are related not to my shortcomings, but to the mercilessly high standards which my time alone with him has set for me.

I am done gushing. You are now free to puke.