If You Love My Bloody Valentine, Read This Book

I'm halfway into a book called, "Perfect from Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life," and it's amazing. Like someone shined a light on my musical journey through indie rock and wrote a book about it. The writer grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan (about an hour from where I spent my formative years) and, as a kid, listened to bands like Duran Duran, Journey and Sammy Hagar-era Van Halen. Then one day a cooler friend of his played U2's "War," and his life changed forever. The book is a virtual Who's Who of every single fantastic band you ever loved... The Smiths, Joy Division, The Pixies, Dinosaur, jr., The Stone Roses, etc... The writing is funny, poignant and sometimes makes you cringe because that person dancing in front of the mirror to "Everybody Wang Chung tonight," was YOU. The best bits about this book, though, are the copious footnotes and the appendix at the back which has tons of lists that are guaranteed to cause mayhem among indie-rock circles. Read it. You'll love it. Trust me.

Permanant Marker

I've never been a fan of pencils. Not even in elementary school. In fact, I was probably the only 2nd grader who had arguments with the teacher about writing with a pen. I guess pencils just weren't permanant enough for me. I didn't like the idea that anything I wrote with a pencil could be erased so easily. So it might seem strange that I've taken a very strong stance against tattoos. Now in the interest of full disclosure, I did flirt with the idea of a tattoo for several years. I knew what I wanted (a quill), where I wanted it (on the curve of my right hip) and why I wanted one (to dedicate myself to a life of creative writing). There was a certain weekend in the summer of 1997 when I was fully committed to driving down to Newport, Rhode Island (tattoo joints were illegal in Massachusetts... damn puritans!) to get permanantly inked. But around this time, when everyone from suburban kids in Peoria to 60-year old grandmothers decided tattoos were cool, I came to the conclusion that they weren't. At least not anymore. I have a cut-off date. If you got a tattoo prior to 1990, then it's cool. After? Not cool. You see, tattoos used to be about nonconformity. Living on the fringe. Not being part of the mainstream. It was about not giving a damn and individualism. Except it wasn't just the tattoo. It was the philosophy, the politics, the fierce resistance to everything mass-produced, mass-marketed and mass-regurgitated. Today, getting a tattoo is no different than having your ears pierced and just as common. Which is why I'm abstaining.

A Big Jerk

Having a newspaper column means that sometimes I get emails from people who respond to a particular column of mine. It's flatering that someone will read words I've written and be galvanized to actually sit down and write me an email so I've always written back a friendly reply. Recently a woman from Boston contacted me, and I wrote back enthusiastically because I used to live there. Since my editor is interested in any reader feedback I receive, I forward all these emails to her, usually with a line or two from me. In this particular case, I wrote, "Another fan. Ha. Ha." Unfortunately, I was distracted by a phone call, and instead of forwarding it to my editor, I accidentally hit the REPLY button and then SEND. It was one of those moments where you wish there was a 30 second window to retrieve an email before the other person receives it. I felt like a big jerk but especially when I opened the terse email she sent a day later that said I should keep better track of my reply messages. What could I say? She was right. Something that was meant to be funny took on an entirely different tone. From her perspective, it sounded like I was making fun of her when, in fact, the mockery was totally self-directed. I'm not so full of self-importance to belive that I actually have "fans." My first instinct was to write back an apology and explain the mistake, but, really, it just sounded like an excuse for bad behavior. Besides, I'm just self-flagellating enough to consider her poor opinion of me my just desserts. But, just in case "BostonTheresa" is reading this, I'm really very sorry, and you're right... I am a jerk.