lets start with how i did everything wrong today. i shouldnt have even gone to work.

it was opening day. all my childhood i begged and faught with my mother to get this day off. now that im an adult and i could have very simply called in “sick” i didnt because im loyal and a great employee even when i get paid chicken feed. but the man upstairs, i know that he cares, he helped the cubbies win. and now we only have 161 more wins until i can feel totally comfortable.

i shouldnta gone into work because i was distracted by the game. i have a hard time concentrating at my job and watching the cubs on tv. my job is super hard. i need to focus at all times.

i was also distracted by the anniversary of kurts death. i wanted to write something really great and powerful and insightful and killer because i have an unusual relationship to nirvana since i was on college radio when bleach came out, i was the arts and entertainment editor when nevermind came out, i played “teen spirit” on the radio before it was even released, i saw their last concert in LA, and i lived with two total nirvana nuts who played the records non stop for weeks after he died. not only was i paying attention to popular music during the time of grunge, my eyes and ears were wide open as was my heart and i was writing it all down. if there was a target market i was it, if they were selling kool-aid i was drinking it and telling all my friends to swim in it with me.

and of course i was distracted by tsar headlining the most important show of their careers.

most people dont know, but daylight savings time was supposed to happen next week, but when the powers that be found out that tsar was playing today they told everyone that today was the day to turn the clocks forward so that tsar would take the stage earlier.

hollywood crowds do not dance, they dont clap, they dont cheer and you rarely get encores. and some would say you dont fill a club up on wilshire blvd just east of fairfax on passover night, but tsar did and people danced and clapped and cheered and tsar would have gotten an encore, but they had nothing left to prove after their unrelenting and blistering set of mostly new tunes from their upcoming cd, band girls money.

excited on many levels, happy, sad, twisted, fucked in so many ways, i paid real money to eat a salad for lunch, i began drinking immediately after work had ended, i ended up eating 7 tums throughout the day, and i wound up dropping and shattering my sole digital camera in the mens room of marie calendars, karma for shitting in the handicapped stall.

i took four dumps today.

here it is 1am. i have no idea how to feel about anything. im pissed at all the fucking idiots who talked shit about my hero in metafilter, im stoked that tsar really could fill the barn called the el rey but im pissed that the crowd didnt react the way they should have which was with awe and joy, instead they just stood and stared with their jaws dropped.

im furious with gravity for taking my truly true love, my canon s45 which has an extended good guys warranty but i seriously doubt dropping it on a cement floor is covered, but as soon as it broke i thought of kurt and i thought of passover and i was all symbolic about first born male sons dying and i loved that camera like a son and i learned it fast and loved it easily.

im grateful for the famous editor who said he read my xbi story of last week when we got shot at in koreatown who said that i shouldnt bother with being a reporter or columnist that i should just focus on being what he called a writer because he suggested that editors would only ruin what good thing i have and i thought to myself that i love editors and i need editing and some of my best friends arent gay, theyre editors. but he meant it completely complimentary and i took it the same, he was saying i was good, and as often as i hear that in the comments and from the friends, it never sticks for more than a millisecond.

and im super pissed at the jagoff who deleted the fantasy league today that i joined sunday and drafted perfectly despite getting the last pick in the 12 team draft.

but the best part of the night was watching this one kid wearing a tsar shirt standing right underneath jeff singing along to all the words of all the songs from a record that hasnt even come out yet. and i know there were industry people in the house because you could see the stains in the carpet as they slithered to the free drinks, and if any of them wants to prove that they belong, they will do something about this tiny little miracle and help make it not just my favorite band, but the planet’s.

im grateful to gravity because this is the first tsar show where i actually watched completley undistracted while holding a bottle of beer amazed at how sparkling rock can be.

and i love that my ears are still ringing.

luminous dreams + five live links + melting dolls

ten years ago it ended a whole lot more than the best band of the nineties. in retrospect it ended rock as we knew it.

during the grunge era of 89-94 the “seattle sound” dominated the rock pop and alternative airwaves, as well as mtv.

rock was hot and it was not unusual to hear pearl jam, soundgarden, stone temple pilots, jane’s addiction, smashing pumpkins, bush, and nirvana every hour; but also metallica’s black album was ripping up the charts, as were hip hop groups like the beastie boys, public enemy, ll cool j, de la soul, cypress hill, and a crew from compton called nwa.

and then you had the riot grrl movement, and then you had the post-punkers like green day, bad religion, the replacements, and sonic youth. and it was all on tv and it was all over the airwaves and it was fresh and vibrant and real and popular.

it was nirvana in many many ways.

it was the musical equivalent of the renaissance, expressionism, and surrealism having a gangbang right in front of our ears.

which is how lollapalooza was created, and why it was so successful.

since that shotgun blast in seattle not only has rock died with no hope on the horizon of a star as big as cobain, but rap has gone top 40 with cartoon characters like outkast and boy banders like justin replacing the likes of snoop dogg, dre, and biggie in the hip hop.

radio and mtv is back in that horrible mess that nirvana exploited and rallied against, and they did it so beautifully that everyone who got it could just sit there and smile cuz it was so simple.

people try to pick kurts words apart and you cant. he revealed nothing in his words.

people try to look at the music, but thats also a mystery.

they look at the goofy bouncing bass player as the weak link, but krist was no weak link, he was ideal.

nirvana was just as punk rock wearing surgeon’s jackets and smashing guitars as they were wearing sweaters on mtvs unplugged. kurts voice was just as violent as his power chords.

what i loved about him was he seamlessly mixed metal and punk and thrash and pop together with nursery rhymey lyrics that both insulted the listener, confused the critic, and rewarded the fan.

he was everything and nothing.

he was heavy metal rock star and weezer.

he was that sad little kid in the corner and the sleeping giant awakened.

he married the right girl and the wrong woman.

he was a fish swimming upstream and headed down hill.

he was the most spectacular disaster ever documented and i was right there so close that i still cant even believe it not even now ten years later.

and its still hard to listen to that music because it has become so personal.

but it blows away everything that has come after it, it destroyed metal almost singlehandedly, and it makes the lying liars seem that much more fake.

i miss kurt cobain and nirvana more than i miss everything that ive ever missed put together.

he influences this blog far more than i could possibly explain.

one of the few bands that makes me as happy as nirvana did is tsar, who i understand is playing tonight.

ken layne + matt welch + anita rowland

Speaking from the tongue of an experienced simpletion who obviously would rather be an emascluated, infantile complain-ee. This note should be pretty easy to understand. All the warnings from the punk rock 101 courses over the years, since my first introduction to the, shall we say, ethics involved with independence and the embracement of your community has proven to be very true .

I haven’t felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music along with reading and writing for too many years now. I feel guilty beyond words about about these things.

For example when we’re backstage and the lights go out and the manic roar of the crowd begins, it doesn’t affect me the way in which it did for Freddy Mercury, who seemed to love, relish in the love and adoration from the crowd, which is something I totally admire and envy.

The fact is, I can’t fool you, any one of you. It simply isn’t fair to you or me. The worst crime I can think of would be to rip people off by faking it and pretending as if I’m having 100% fun. Sometimes I feel as if I should have a punch-in time clock before I walk out on stage . I’ve tried everything within my power to appreciate it (and I do, God believeme I do, but it’s not enough).

I appreciate the fact that I and we have affected and entertained a lot of people. I must be one of those narcissists who only appreciate things when they’re gone. I’m too sensitive. I need to be slightly numb in order to regain the enthusiasm I once had as a child.

On our last 3 tours, I’ve had a much better appreciation for all the people I’ve known personally and as fans of our music, but I still can’t get over the frustration, the guilt and empathy I have for everyone. There’s good in all of us and I think I simply love people too much, so much that it makes me feel too fucking sad. The sad little sensitive, unappreciative, Pisces, Jesus man.

Why don’t you just enjoy it?

I dont know!

I have a goddess of a wife who sweats ambition and empathy and a daughter who reminds me too much of what I used to be, full of love and joy , kissing every person she meets because everyone is good and will do her no harm. And that terrifies me to the point where I can barely function.

I can’t stand the thought of Frances becoming the miserable, self-destructive, death rocker that I’ve become.

I have it good, very good, and I’m grateful, but since the age of seven, I’ve become hateful towards all humans in general. Only because it seems so easy for people to get along and have empathy. Only because I love and feel sorry for people too much I guess.

Thank you all from the pit of my burning, nauseous stomach for your letters and concern during the past years. I’m too much of an erratic, moody, baby!

I don’t have the passion anymore, and so remember, it’s better to burn out then to fade away.

Peace, Love, Empathy

Kurt Cobain

Frances and courtney, I’ll be at your altar. Pleas keep going Courtney, for Frances. For her life, which will be so much happier without me.

I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU!

keep on keeping on. saturday my truest took me out for barbeque ribs and we faught and i suppose that was to be expected then we made up then we faught some more. this afternoon she told me that she was madder at me than i thought and i was all whoa.

sunday i went to the laker game with my old roommie. they played well but still lost. i dont understand.

shaq and malone played well. kobe was hot. you’d think that would be enough but san antone are the defending chumps so you really have to whale on them if youre going to win.

thank god for parody.

parady.

however you spell that shit.

before the game liana and i had a mexican breakfast. she told me that she would wait for my divorce and then she will have little black babies with me. i told her shes going to find a nice jewish man to settle down with and if she wants black kids so badly she should adopt them with him but she dabbed a little hot sauce on her tortilla and picked the onions out of her taquito and told me i was loco.

im totally loco.

clipper girl was at the game and waved at me. she was sitting next to her cousin in a luxury suite sipping a cosmo out of a glass through a straw. she had on her clipper jersey. dork.

the laker girls came out in an outfit that i didnt recognize. it was long yellow sweat pants and a long sleeve yellow shirt with black stripes. and then i saw the lettering on the front. it said Kill Bill and on the back it said DVD comes out April 6. it was the dumbest ad ive ever seen.

dont ho out my hos, lakers. sheesh.

outside the game a brotha was selling kobe tshirts. on the back of the shirts it said, no more white chicks.

it was nice to go to a 12:30p game, cuz we were done at 3:30p and i had time to take a little nap and wait for my wife to come home from the market. the plan was to watch 60 minutes, the simpsons and the sopranos but we just made sweet love and let the spaghetti sauce burn the pot.

afterwards we ate bannana splits for dinner.

tsar plays tonight + go + rampant intellectualism