Fragments from my 2015 notebook taken completely out of context

• Music Theory for the Easily Bored


• She’s a Hindu now. Or an Indian mystic. Or something.


• What was the context for “The Ferret Song”?


• Don McLean won’t explain “American Pie.” But I will.


• “Should I send the car around or will you just be taking your unicorn?”


• A flippant Eno.


• How did one do the Twine?


• Side project: Origin of “Shit Creek.” The term.


• He actually played the Pints Barn in Tumwater. I missed it.


• Whither Flint?


• I consort with your bacterium.


• WordPress. Learn goddamn WordPress.


• Mainly I’m just doing this for attention.


• This Half-Paralyzed Business Of Music


• “Esophageal remnants”


• Industrial and agricultural taboos may be your natural enemies, Pan Of The Porch, but nothing constricts your bravery quite like forbidden love.


• Look up something in a Cyrillic language.


• Not really up on what they sell at McDonald’s.


• But there are mentions of Teddy boys – look up in the Guardian.


• It was more important to modernize Europe than rebuild it.


• Well, we’re all dyin’.


• This is the point where his spiritism began heavy lifting.


• He saw angels. His parents didn’t appreciate that.


• Male tribalism.


• Everybody in the business hated Joe Meek so he shot himself. Glenda took an office job.


• Ted Leo is an excitable boy.


• Hey! Disinterested sex!


• A snake! He summons fire. He’s got Vulcan headphones on. Oh, twist: End of the video she walks free – but he’s in the hourglass!


• Dinner party. They’re all gonna die! Food fight! Fucked up! Fuck the poor!


• Look, just take the apartment, all right?


• My, what large vistas you have.


• Why does everything sound like the chorus to “Hello” by Lionel Richie?


• People exist and have some form of life.


• Almost as blasé as the way the French regard polyamory.


• A BEEF RESURRECTION!


• Shane McGowan, with teeth!


• We are amongst you. We feed off _______.


• The fear of popularity standing in the way of ambition.


• Murder on the Album-Oriented Express.


• Won’t talk to anyone but is apparently a very nice man.


• Should have just kept things as they were, bub.


• Closed drive-thru lanes at White Castle for political revenge.


• Christ, do you have any idea how creepy you’re being?


• I find them useful in things like crime scenes, when Post-its may not be sufficient.


• You’d made a horrible mistake and you’re not racist. Develop.


• If You’re Going To Refute Science Out of Religious Principle Then Stop Using Math To Fix the Date of the Apocalypse.


• The well-worn Home Depot trope.


• SHOW UP AT EVENTS. Go to events.


• Art Garfunkel saved his career.


• Play it, EWF horns.


• How copyrighted is “Nexus”?


• OVERWHELM THEM WITH AUTHENTICITY


• There’s a certain joie de vivre about efficiency.


• Marvin Gaye – and was he the opposite?


• Ah, the seeping implied naturalism of the hippies meets the maligned constructivism of the digital sampler.


• One of the greatest things anyone has ever done to archival documents of any kind.


• In the midst of declining standards, I’m happy to say my standards can decline with the best of ’em!


• Not drinking. Eventually persuaded.

(I purchased the pictured notebook, a Mead 5-subject college-ruled 180-sheeter, last January at Bartell’s Drugs. Through the year it’s served as my receptacle for story notes, album reviews, brainstorming, idea generation and desperate pleas for employment. All the above notes are reprinted exactly as they appeared. You figure ’em out.)