i may be a bird in a cage but at least it's your cage

Livejournal! I am not dead. I am currently so exhausted I want to die, but I am not dead! I just kind of ... acquired a life, I guess? Started doing ill-advised things like going to five shows in the same week? I don't know.

What I have been doing:

-- Taking photos. You can see how busy my year has been, a lot of it contract work for pub companies and a music blog I started working with, here. Or here, which features one bathroom self-portrait for every show I've been to. Which is, as of right now, 61. Uh. My goal of 100 shows this year is going to be blown right past, I suspect.

Slightly less overwhelming is here, my personal favorites set for 2011.

-- Watching baseball. The UNC baseball team has had a quietly, surprisingly excellent year, and while they are no rivals for the 2007 or 2008 or 2009 teams in my affections, they are a good deal of fun. They scored a totally random national seed in the NCAA tournament and will hopefully make a serious run at getting back to Omaha this year.

-- Dating. Met a dude New Year's Day, got serious, broke up, starting over with him, slowly. Dating takes up a lot of time, you guys.

-- Watching Doctor Who and Game of Thrones. I gave up on How I Met Your Mother and Bones when I started dating the Cowboy in January, because I had no time all of a sudden and also I really wasn't enjoying either season, frankly, but Who and Game of Thrones are really doing it for me lately. I love everyone on Who, but especially Rory, and Game of Thrones is so fucking gorgeous and fucked up, so I'm loving that, too. The violence makes me cringe -- less spurting, please, HBO -- but I'm digging it.

The Cowboy and I are watching The Wire, too. It's awesome, as everyone told me it was. I'm just slow.

-- I am home today and thus able to post because my car died on I-40 last night. Only upside: I have the savings to fix it, it died in a completely convenient non-dangerous spot on the highway, and I have the vacation time to take today off unexpectedly. I am listening to podcasts and reading YA novels while I wait for the mechanic to call me back and tell me what's wrong (the mechanic and my father both THINK it's the alternator, but neither was positive).

-- My Flickr PRO account is about to expire and I have no money to renew it because see also DEAD FUCKING CAR GODDAMNIT LIFE.

-- I also have no money to buy art on Etsy like I want to but that's less of a pressing professional problem. Fuuuuck being broke. And also living somewhere that I love but where I have to own a car.

-- I made a really good pot of coffee this morning.

-- So far my five favorite albums of 2011 are: Ha Ha Tonka -- Death of a Decade; the Booze -- At Maximum Volume; Dave Hause -- Resolutions; the Smith Westerns -- Dye It Blonde; the Low Anthem -- Smart Flesh.

-- I am going to have a caprese salad today for lunch.

-- I am on Twitter as brandnewkindof. I mostly twitter about stupid baseball player hair, beer, music and photography. I don't autofollow back -- I use it professionally, to follow people I know IRL, and to get college baseball info -- but if you feel like following me for short album reviews and griping about mullets and opening bands, go for it. If I don't follow you back, I promise it's not personal.

-- That's all I've got! Need more coffee.

-- How are you guys? What are your favorite albums of 2011? What's taking up your time this year? I miss you. I keep trying to post and then just ... not. But I will do better.

LiveJournal, I know I don't talk to you enough these days. I'm sorry! I'm just really busy. Running around after bands, mostly, but then also sleeping in huge chunks when the huge amounts of time spent running around after bands are finished. I will update you more often. Or at least I'll think about it.

• I'm working on an interview project, finalizing a series of generic questions that will then be furthered tailored to each interviewee, and I could use some help brainstorming things I'd like to ask these people. So first; If you could ask any musician any question about baseball, what would it be? (I realized that my niche market is the intersection of music and baseball, and I'm trying to capitalize on that.) And second: musicians or music bloggers who are also vocal baseball fans. I have a pretty nice start to a list, but I could use more, if you can think of any. Yes, Craig Finn is on my list. Yes, if I land an interview with Craig Finn, I will fall over briefly before regaining my composure.
  
  Got a great question? Got a great musician suggestion? Leave 'em in the comments. I'll give you credit if it comes to fruition, this project. (Especially good if you have contact info. Like, if you have Brian Fallon's email address, leave it here, please.)
  
  
• The last time I asked you guys for recommendations of books about music/music history, you were awesome. Time to play that game again! Books about music (specific bands, memoirs, whatever) or music history (genres, scenes, etc) that you'd recommend.
  
  Recently and not so recently I have read and loved: Our Band Could Be Your Life; Please Kill Me (well, I'm still in the middle of that; I carry it in my camera bag for solo shows); Love Is A Mix Tape; Dixie Lullaby; Across The Great Divide: the Band and America; Just Kids; Miss O'Dell: My Life With The Beatles etc; Positively 4th Street. Girls Like Us is on my to-read list.
  
  I'm not really picky about subject material as long as the writing's good, though I'm also not really interested in anything re: metal. ALRIGHT GO.
  
  I will trade you those recommendations for this list of the 10 Best Music Documentaries of the past decade. :D? :D?
  
  
• I think that the Truckers' two-night stand at the Lincoln still tops my list of shows for the year, but the Two Cow Garage show at Kings three Sundays ago was also phenomenal, for me at least, and this is one of my favorite photos I've taken this year. The National at Memorial Auditorium a few weeks ago is also handily in the top five. Probably my top five shows of the year are as follows: Truckers' two-night stand at the Lincoln, 02/2010; Brian Fallon & Dave Hause at the Black Cat, 01/2010; the National at Memorial, 10/2010; Superchunk at the Cradle, 05/2010; Two Cow at Kings, 10/2010. Ha Ha Tonka this past Tuesday would come in at 6.
  
  But ask me again next week, it might change.
  
  
• I am also working on my year end top 25 albums list. It is harder than I expected it to be; the top ten was pretty easy, both objectively and subjectively, but after that, it gets murky. I shall have a lot of re-listening to do in the next two months. Nobody else release anything good, I can't cope.
  
  But also: hey, what's YOUR favorite album of 2010? I don't promise to listen to it, but I do promise to not judge.
  
  
• Two Thursdays ago I pitched a million publicists, and then when I was done, I still had to do my day job. It was simultaneously exciting and depressing. I love my day job, but sometimes it is just not what I want to, you know, do every day. Then I got ignored by publicists and it made me cranky.
  
  
• College football teams I am invested in this season: Auburn, and everything Cam Newton has thrown out of windows; Iowa, and their fine-lookin' Proud American Patriot Quarterback Ricky Stanzi, even if his hair is bad; Oregon and their Offensive Death Machine of Death; Boise State, because Boise State.
  
  Everyone else can go hang. LSU was interesting until they lost. I am mad at Butch Davis. Even the Beam and VaTech are boring this year. Oregon, though. Man. That offense. I don't even know.
  
  
• I wrote this post like 10 days ago and keep not posting it. Um. The only other things that have happened have been a) having a total meltdown at work two Mondays ago (I'm fine now), and b) Frank Turner is ruining my life. My Christmas mix was SO CLOSE to being done and then he released a new single and it was REALLY GOOD but I already had one of his songs in the mix, have for months, and I don't put two songs from one artist on the mix, so now I have to decide if I want to replace the song that was already there or save the new single and build the 2011 mix around it. Also ruining my life because he's not my boyfriend, but that one is less solvable. ALAS. FRANK TURNER, I LOVE YOU, BE MY BOYFRIEND.

That's all I got, y'all. What's up with you?

I am so bad at posting to LJ these days. I swear I'm reading. I am! I'm just ... faily. At a wide variety of things.

1. So last night I went out and shot Counting Crows with a press pass, at Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary. It was pretty fantastic.
   
   
2. If you only look at one of my concert photos this year, look at this one from that show, which is the best concert shot I've taken this year. (That's Dan Layus and Jared Palomar of Augustana. And how did I do it? A super fast lens, good lighting, and blind luck. Not shoving to the front of a show with a $50 point and shoot, Ask Metafilter commenters. >:((()
   
   
3. What I have been doing since the last time I posted: rooting fruitlessly for UCLA in the College World Series; going to a lot of baseball games; gaining five pounds from drinking beer; going to shows; taking photos; emailing janet_carter about Brian Fallon and algernon_mouse about photography and day jobs; being full of rage at stupid people on the internet. The usual, etc.
   
   
4. My favorite album of 2010, thus far, is Gaslight Anthem's American Slang. I fully expect the upcoming Two Cow Garage to pass that one, but for now, it's Brian and company at the front of my list. I think the best album so far this year is probably the new Black Keys, which is unbelievably good. My favorite track of 2010 is the Roadside Graves' "Liv Tyler". And the album I've actually listened to the most this year is Frank Turner's Love Ire & Song, which came out in 2008.
   
   
5. Here, have a song from that album: [Frank Turner -- "Reasons Not To Be An Idiot"] THIS SONG IS APPROPRIATE TO ALL MY FEELINGS THESE DAYS.
   
   
6. The Orioles are mind-bendingly awful, and the Wiets is on the DL. The Tar Heels salvaged pieces of their season, but we can't talk about blown saves, the Harv's pitch count, the draft choices of the Indians, mayonnaise salad, kegs of bacon, idiot man children, dumplings, or pretty much anything else relating to the 2010 Carolina baseball season, because then I'll probably have to punch you in the face. This week, Anthony Rendon, presumed consensus #1 draft pick next June, shattered his ankle during a rundown while playing for the collegiate Team USA. My baseball karma this year is crap.
   
   
7. The little people in my iPod owe my $85,000 in solitaire winnings.

THE END. How are you guys?

Happy Memorial Day, y'all. If you have it off, I hope you're enjoying it. If you're not in the States or you have to work, I hope it's bearable. I hope everyone's thinking of your soldiers today either way.

Catch-up, catch-up:

1. Everyone who has asked me what I've been up to lately has gotten the same answer: running around shooting indie hipster bands, watching and obsessing about all levels of baseball, hanging out at the farmer's market, drinking beer. Seriously. I'm really good at all of those things, though, so it's okay.
   
   
2. No, really, I've been busy: between doing things out of the house and being, you know, an introvert who also needs serious recharging time, the last few months have been frantically busy for me. June doesn't look any less packed, nor does July. It's good to be busy, I think. It keeps me focused on things other than my brain spinning like a hamster on a wheel. Lots of outdoor concerts and baseball games coming up, and that's always good. Music outdoors is amazing.
   
   
3. So far the best album of 2010 is the new Black Keys album, Brothers, followed closely by the Drive-By Truckers' The Big To-Do and Eli 'Paperboy' Reed's Come and Get It. Blues, rock, soul. Yes, please. Go get 'em all.
   
   
4. The best show I've seen in 2010 was Superchunk at the Cat's Cradle a few weeks ago, followed closely by the Drive-By Truckers' two night stand at the Lincoln in Raleigh back in February, and Brian Fallon and Dave Hause acoustic at the Black Cat in DC in January.
   
   
5. The best baseball I've watched was Carolina's three game sweep of Virginia Tech, but the game that meant the most was getting to see ex-Heel Dustin Ackley play Double-A baseball in Zebulon, NC, over the weekend. And not just because the whole Carolina was bizarrely and traumatizingly in attendance, and also I bucked up and told Coach how much his teams had meant to me over the last few years. (It helped that I was tipsy. I was surprisingly concise and coherent and not at all weird for being drunk on Yuengling, frankly.) But because Dustin is amazing and lovely and I miss seeing him wear Carolina blue so much it hurts like a broken heart. I was very proud.
   
   
6. I am not watching much TV at all right now: with How I Met Your Mother and Bones done for the year, it's me and Doctor Who and that's it. I will probably watch all of Friday Night Lights season four over the summer. And Psych comes back soon, right? But mostly, if our TV is on, it's tuned to baseball, or it's playing a movie we've seen a million times or TiVoed episodes of Ace of Cakes, The Best Thing I Ever Ate, and Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Duff + tasty things + restaurants I could visit on road trips = happy Min.
   
   
7. Although also: June 24, 2010, new Futurama episodes. 26 whole episodes! Very exciting.
   
   
8. Yesterday I got to have breakfast with ipso__facto and The Mets Fan and The Mets Fan's Chef Cousin. We ate at Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe and then took a lengthy hike around campus. It was hot and gross, but the company was excellent. I miss seeing Lala regularly and was glad to have any time with her I could. ♥
   
   
9. I'm weirdly sad and restless today. Cleaning the bathroom didn't help. I'm pretty sure that a beer at 10:18 am won't help, either.

I'm still here and reading. Mostly I'm just so busy out running around that I forget to actually talk, too.

accurate summation of my life, represented by things i actually accomplished this weekend, in list form, out of chronological order:

• did laundry.
  
  
• found missing striped knee socks! (under bed, with several paperback mystery novels and a lot of cat hair.)
  
  
• had bizarre phone conversation with my sister where i thought her garbled voice mail was about a could-have-been-read-as-bitchy email i sent her and my parents saturday morning and mom wanted me to apologize for it, but it was really about a parental unit unexpectedly having a non-threatening-but-sudden-onset medical issue.
  
  
• mitigated familial worry by drinking half a bottle of wine. fell asleep on the couch and drooled on the john irving novel i'm re-reading.
  
  
• sent kickthebeat approximately 78 text messages about how gay the heisman ceremony was. (it was gay. it was really, really gay. tebow, why don't you gaze lovingly at colt mccoy over enormous sandwiches some more, and then make another nationally televised thinly veiled bitchy comment about his friendship with sam bradford? BECAUSE THAT WAS BEAUTIFUL. video of their sandwich date, and also there is this beautiful OH GOD TEBOW HIT ON COLT HARDER PLEASE video. tim tebow's desperate desire to make colt mccoy like him warms my cold black heart something awful.)
  
  
• watched about 14 hours of espn because i was too lazy to change the channel.
  
  
• went to a show friday night, enjoyed the music, bitched at triskellita about the hipsters, the red light bulbs, and the fact that my head hurt. the music and the company were really awesome, though, as usual.
  
  
• ate an entire pizza.

now i'm watching episodes of bones i've already seen on the tivo, and tonight i'm going out to see micah schnabel of two cow garage (again), and then it's just one more full week of work before a mercifully short week before christmas and a trip to the beach. the beach makes everything okay.

my point being, when i don't post to livejournal, all you are really missing is endless bitching about hipsters and crappy venue lighting, and probably out of line speculation about colt mccoy's sex life.

note that this is not going to stop me from speculating about colt mccoy's sex life, just that i know it's a little, you know, weird.

Uhhhhhhhhhh, so I didn't post at all in September. That may be the first month I've gone in my entire livejournal-having career where I haven't posted at least once. Sorry, kids. I swear I'm not dead. Just busy.

The fact is: the not-so-new job really takes it out of me during the week, and I had forgotten how real full-time employment sort of whoops your ass no matter how much you like your job (which I do); I've been crazy busy with travel and shows and out of town guests and 14-hour football Saturdays when I'm not at work; I've been really up in my own head ... well, not even recently. Most of 2009 I've been up in my own head, working stuff out and planning photo projects and thinking about stuff that isn't necessarily suited to posting frequently to livejournal. 29 has mostly been a pretty spectacularly shitty year, for a variety of reasons, but it's gotten me thinking hard about a lot of stuff I needed to think about, so at least there's that.

I feel guilty when I don't post, though, so I will do my best in the future to be better about it. Hi. What's up? Have you all forgotten that I exist?

Here are some things that I have been thinking about recently:

• The new Big Star box set, Keep An Eye On The Sky, is tremendous. Big Star is generally considered to be one of the, if not the, first "power pop" band to come out of the States, and they're tragically under-known these days. There's a version of "Thirteen" on the first disc that just about stopped my heart with how gorgeous it is. In other news, I love all box sets full of rarities and outtakes and demo versions of things. The Faces box set from a few years back is also fantastic, for example.
  
  
• I bought a new camera lens, a gorgeous little Nikon E-series 100mm/f2.8. It'll never replace my beloved 50mm in versatility, but it's a bit of a wonder in concert venues -- the sharpness of it even at f2.8 is miraculous. Now to just squash the glass envy down for another six months or so, which is about the interval best left for expensive purchases that I might later regret. (I don't regret this particular purchase, but do I really need a Sigma 10-20mm wide angle macro lens? No. No, I don't, at least right now. Doesn't stop me from wanting one.)
  
  
• Mike Leach has a great habit of producing quarterbacks I simply adore despite never having heard of them before they become the next Red Raider 4000 yard passing king. Texas Tech starter Taylor Potts has an amazing mustache, a great arm, and was nearly decapitated by the Texas d-line a few weeks back and kept playing, and over the weekend back-up Steven Sheffield threw for more than 400 yards when Potts was out with a concussion. In other football news, things I am already tired of hearing about this season: Tim Tebow; Bobby Bowden. Play or don't play, retire or keep coaching Florida State into mediocrity, I really don't fucking care. NEXT.
  
  
• I'm rooting for the Yankees in the playoffs. In part this is because my baseball team is bad and I live with a Yankees fan and it's nice to have an interest in a team that wins, but mostly it's because my late grandfather, who passed away in July, was a lifelong -- 70+ years -- Yankees fan. If the Yankees win the World Series this year, it'll be at least, unintentionally, a little in part for my Papou. And I will defend the fuck out of my choice to root for this team, this year, to the death.
  
  
• The next few weeks are an even crazier-than-usual blur with the end of training and going back to finally actually start doing my new job, a million concerts both here and out of town alike, football, the State Fair, fall college baseball, a flying visit from my mom and her siblings, and I'm not going to front: it'll probably be November before I post again. But at least I'll be having fun while I'm not here? :D? :D?

Today is a federal holiday. I'm wearing pajamas and watching SportsCenter and drinking coffee on a Monday morning. Doesn't get better than this.

You guys, I really got nothing. I just feel guilty when I don't post for, uh, a month.

• I've mostly been running around on a crazy concert schedule, taking pictures, watching baseball, and suffering through the epic endless training program for my new job. It's a pretty good life.
  
  
• I've even picked up some paid (!!!) photo work lately, and not just paid in: guest list spots; beer; offers of sexual favors; offers of illegal drugs; eternal gratitude. Paid in cash and real credits. It's crazy and weird and amazing, and I feel like a failure at it all the time.
  
  
• The new job, which is not so new anymore, is awesome. Stressful and scary, sometimes, but awesome.
  
  
• I am in search of an album, because I want to hear it before I buy it; I want to know if it's as good as their first album, which was quietly supremely stellar. I suspect no one out there has it, because random indie Americana bands from Brooklyn aren't, you know, readily available on the internets, but if anybody has Jones Street Station's In Verses, gimme that album now. I'll trade you my undying affection for it.
  
  
• Thanks to katlike, I discovered and am really loving C-Monster's blog, which is about Art with a Big A. Recommend some other blogs to me that are like this one? I'm less interested in the scene in a particular city -- unless it's one of the Triangle cities -- than I am in Art In General.
  
  
• Here, have the song I can't get out of my head this week: [The Rosebuds -- "Hold Hands And Fight"] 3MB, .mp3. The thing I love about Ivan and Kelly is that they make this music with supremely depressing lyrics and it sounds so goddamned cheerful.

So far today the best thing I've accomplished was washing a cat. It was about as much fun as you'd expect.

1. I had an epic post about baseball that was eaten when my laptop fried out a memory chip on Sunday night, but the gist was: no matter how far removed we get from that mid-90s version of it, when I think of the Braves' starting rotation, I still think Smoltz Glavine Maddux Millwood; filled out the last page in my scorebook a few weeks ago, am glad for cleanliness and sturdiness of new one, miss the history of seven years' baseball attendance from the old one (HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHAT SHORTSTOPS FROM CLEMSON ARE CAPABLE OF IF I CAN'T SEE THAT THEY WENT 2 FOR 14, REACHED ON TWO ERRORS, AND SCORED ON A BALK AGAINST CAROLINA THIS YEAR >:(); growing fonder by the day of Orioles' first round draft pick (and now Rookie League pitcher) Matt Hobgood (he signed so early because he just wants to play baseball, he didn't care about the extra million! he has braces! he's so young his mama had to co-sign his contract! *heart hands*). Also, loving Brad Bergesen's pitching for the O's these days but not wild about our total inability to hold a lead after a lights-out 8IP performance from a good young starter. My baseball team is bad and I suspect they feel very bad about it. They better. I feel bad about them.
   
   
2. I also now have a job. I will be working in a field office of a much-maligned branch of the federal government starting on Monday, and I'll be there for at least two years (my probation period), and probably longer. After two years of grad school and two years of contract employment and working from home, I am absolutely excited to have a computer and a desk and an 8 to 5 cube. Sure, I'll miss the CSI re-runs, but I've seen most of them by this point. Some stability and normalcy in my life will not go amiss. Also the ability to pay bills and get federal holidays off and have health insurance, awesome. And that is the last time that I will discuss my new job in public. But know that I'm excited about it!
   
   
3. My brain is basically devoted full-time these days to the following: baseball, mostly minor league; live music and our local scene; cooking; reading everything in the known universe; Texts from Last Night; reading blogs about photography and coveting Pentax K1000's and Holgas and the new Olympus EP-1's and the Nikon E-series 100mm/f2.8 lens. If any of you have any of those camera things hanging around your house, and you're not using them (and frankly, if you have gotten your hands on an EP-1 and you're not using it, what the fuck are you, a flaming moron?), please send them to me. I would take very good care of them.
   
   
4. I'm vaguely irritated by the Cobra Starship tour dates, because Charlotte is a Sunday and the closest other date is Richmond on a Tuesday, and as we all know, these days I only drive through Richmond to spit on the place on the way to somewhere more awesome. There are bands I'd go to Richmond for, at the right venue, but Cobra is not one of them. (Said bands: Okkervil River if there wasn't a closer date; the Avett Brothers but only at the National and only if there wasn't a better option here; Mason Jennings headlining the National. That's about it. Maybe the Truckers with a really good supporting line-up and no Triangle dates.) Richmond is bad and should feel bad for always being mean to us. But, you know, I haven't been to a bandom-bands show since Cobra last fall, so it's not like I appear to be invested or anything. I'm excited about the Cobras' new album, though, and I wish they'd just realize that there's more to the NC than Charlotte; there's a day off between Charlotte and Richmond, they could play the fucking Lincoln once in a while. Jeez, Gabe.
   
   
5. Other albums coming out in the second half of the year that I'm excited about: the new Wye Oak; the new Bombadil; the new Megafaun; the new Avett Brothers (holy crap I am excited about that one); the final New West album of the Truckers' contract, the b-sides and outtakes one; the new AA Bondy. I would be excited about the new-new Truckers and the new Josh Ritter but we're not getting those until next year. And there are some local bands who either need to put out their new albums or just fucking give me all the rough cuts of what they've recorded so far to tide me over before I go to their houses and punch them in the kidneys.
   
   
6. I have finally seen enough movies in the theater this year that I contemplated starting a list in my journal, like I've kept other years, but then I remembered that seeing Star Trek three times and Up twice doesn't actually mean I've seen 7 movies in the theater. I've just seen four (those two, plus Watchmen and the Brothers Bloom) ... multiple times. And frankly the rest of the year will probably just be me seeing the Harry Potter movie over and over again, and maybe Star Trek one more time, so a list is still sort of unnecessary. I used to see a lot of movies, and now that money gets spent on concert tickets and PBR.

That's all I got. Time to go to the library and do laundry and enjoy the penultimate day of my unemployment. How are you guys?

Dear friends inside the internets machine:

Hello! It's been a while, hasn't it? Here are some things that are going on with me right now:

1. I have a Dreamwidth account. I don't know what I'm going to use it for yet, because let's face it: I've been pretty crap at LiveJournal recently anyway, and I've been out of active fandom for almost a year at this point, but I have the account. Do with that information what you will, and as soon as I get my own shit together, perhaps I will do with that information something as well.
   
   
2. None of you have asked me this question, but approximately fourteen other people have over the course of the last two weeks, including at least six just last night, so the answer is: no, I am not going to Shakori Hills (a kickass roots music festival 45 minutes from my apartment). Reasons for this are three: I'm broke like a joke and weekend passes there are fucking expensive; we have tickets to all three UNC/Miami baseball games this weekend anyway; I don't fucking camp, because I am too old to sleep on the goddamned ground anymore. The last of those three seems to be the reason that best gets people off my back about it. Musicians, oddly, don't seem to understand the commitment to baseball.
   
   
3. Here is the answer to another question, though I'm not going to tell you what the question is; just know that this answer has been a fairly constant refrain here at the Alpha Site over, oh, the last couple of months: because we don't know any normal people.
   
   
4. I've been doing a fair amount of shooting in studio while musicians record lately, and I am craving the opportunity to do more. Do you live in the Triangle? Do you have a band? Do you want me to come over and take pictures while you record and/or rehearse? :D? :D? I promise not to fall off chairs onto anyone, puts cats in anyone's hair, or have complex arguments about who's actually out of tune, the guitar or the banjo. I am quiet and unobtrusive and I won't drink all your beer! I swear! :D?
   
   
5. I personally feel that the world would be a better place if more people played the banjo-ukelele. The banjolele, if you will.
   
   
6. About, oh, two months ago, they started renovating the previously-empty bar next door to my office. This distresses me on multiple levels, the first being that I'd lusted after doing a promo shoot with some friends in a band in there, before the construction workers ripped out the gorgeous old vintage mahogany bar, but I didn't get to that stage in my friendship with those boys before they ripped it out. The second level of distress is that we were treated to two straight months of jackhammering and pounding and walls shaking as they ripped out of the old floor and then the concrete below it, and today we have a noise respite -- but the varnish they're using is seeping into our office and I'm high as a fucking kite and I have a headache, even though we have the doors open and a fan going, and I've only been here two hours.
   
   
7. I have sucked at my job lately, which has caused me to avoid my boss, which has caused me to not have anything to do aside from the stuff I'm avoiding doing, and it's just this vicious circle of suck at my day job and all I want to do is run off and become a professional rock and roll photographer, which is not at all feasible for a variety of reasons. I have one thing to accomplish today, something I have been putting off for a week out of laziness and grumpiness, and I have to get it done. Or I'm going to put myself on notice.
   
   
8. Also it seems to have started raining. Eff you, North Carolina, I just want some consistently nice weather for a while, Jesus Christ.

That's all I know, friends in the internets machine! I hope you are all doing well. You could tell me cheerful things, if you wanted, so that I do not lose my shit and punch someone in the face today.

Love and kisses,
Min