Battle Scars

Right from the start, I liked Battles. That was partially to do with the fact that the group includes an ex-member of Don Caballero (bubble-gum lover & hockey-stick guitar guru Ian Williams; by the way, to my knowledge he doesn’t do the Bubbleyum bits anymore), and partially because on an introductory sampler track of unknown origin (OK, I’ll fess up, it probably came via Pitchfork) that included an intrusive mixtape-style DJ shouting stuff over excerpts from their earliest EP – stuff like, “Battles, son!” or whatever. There were probably gunshot sound effects, too.

Which is perhaps a way of saying that it did not come as a surprise that these dudes, despite their avant garde-slash-indie rock bonafides, are equipped with a well-formed sense of absurdity and silliness. Does it bear repeating that this is a good trait for 99 percent of rock bands? So be it. Furthermore, maybe it wasn’t so surprising that the lead single from their fantastic first full-length, “Mirrored,” would have pitch-shifted, vaguely sinister chipmunk vocals and sound like a hard day down at the Keebler Elves factory, if all the elves were in fact troubled androids. I should probably also note that “Atlas,” the song in question, is outstanding, and will one day be known and loved by sports fans the world over by its true name – “Rock & Roll Pt. 3.”

That introductory graf is also a way of saying that when I went to see Battles Sunday, I was going with the mindset of pretty much any reasonable person who willingly plunks down $10 for a ticket – I was going because I liked the band, and was ready to be excited. Because who really likes heading into a situation primed for disappointment? Not this guy. So throw out the standards of objectivity, even the foggiest ones held by the carriers of the sleep-deprived ‘zine tradition. Granted, this is a blog, which is Latin for biased, so the following shouldn’t come as a revelation: Battles were totally awesome, and can best be described as being purveyors of dance rock for amped-up paranoid androids.

That’s what occurred to me to type, at least, as I leaned into the charming Lee Harvey Oswald mural at stageright (possibly stageleft. I was not a drama kid; my wardrobe was not monochromatic; I would’ve liked to read Beckett in high school but was plenty pretentious as it was). Also, they were staggeringly loud, the kind of loud that makes even stupid young men like myself wince while they’re soundchecking, because you’ve situated yourself just a few yards away from a huge stack of speakers and the bass player has a sort of menacing look in his eyes.

They opened with “Race:Out” and then “Tij” and for a moment I thought they might be playing “Mirrored” in its entirety, in reverse. This wasn’t the case, but might’ve been sort of interesting. There were songs, possibly new, possibly ancient, that were cool – one began with a sequence of dueling keyboards that morphed into a pretty heavy jam thanks to the superlative performance of drummer John Stanier (ex-Helmet?). Like a lot of bands that could be tagged math rock (could be; these dudes really shouldn’t be), Battles can sound sort of bloodless and distant on record (not always a drawback) but that feeling vanishes about a minute into their live show, as Stanier lunges up to bash his flamboyantly high crash cymbal, or hunches over to keep the pace, veins bulging but hair remaining caked in place. Truly impressive.

The highlight, of course, was “Atlas,” and not just because the song is a.) the one everyone in the room was most familiar with (& therefore most amped to hear) or b.) the one that got the goofy dude in front of me swaying the most expressively. It was actually the fact that midway through the song, the stage lost power, dropping everything but Stanier’s drums and the crowd’s glossolalic singalong. I can only guess it was all the wires and technology that overloaded the club’s circuits – perhaps Battles simply brought too much rock – but the drums continued even as the other three players looked somewhat bummed. The crowd kept at it – a show of enthusiasm I’ve just got to label unusual for Emo’s – and for an instant I felt like an English soccer hooligan. It was a cool feeling, like when you really want to punch a guy for no good reason.

Anyway, the day was saved shortly. The power returned, and singer Ty Braxton launched us into take two. Did they spend longer on the awesome take-no-prisoners vamp that opens the song? Could they have played that vamp for the entire hour and fifteen minutes? (Yes, and without a word of protest from stageright, or crowdleft, or what have you.) He later said something sort of self-deprecating about how if you want to hear the songs as they’re supposed to be played, listen to the record – and maybe they didn’t reciprocate the crowd’s support quite enough (J.’s observation) – but still, it (the excitement) was there in spades, and that was pretty cool.

They shut it down a little after 1 a.m., and I waited in the longest merch line ever for a t-shirt. It’s hard to complain, though, when it was half the band that was handling the transactions (I was happy it was Braxton who handed me my shirt and not Stanier, who is probably still wiping sweat from his brow).

Also notable: openers Unwed Sailor were enjoyable, if a bit workmanlike in their instrumental rocking. Maybe I describe them that way because the centerstage bass player looked like someone I worked construction with several summers ago. He broke a string after a few songs, after saying they had two tunes left, and didn’t seem all that bummed – “I think we accomplished what we set out to do” – and that was it.

That pleasant surprise was followed by Ponytail, probably the least attractive band I’ve ever seen in person. At first, they looked like a trio – maybe they’d also be sans a traditional singer? – with two guitarists (one an extraordinarily androgynous Asian dude, the other a disconcerting blend of Weird Al and Albert Hammond Jr., in green soccer shorts) and a goofy, afro’d drummer. Then came the singer, apparently a 14-year-old girl with a killer mullet and baby fat for days. Her black t-shirt had the outlines of hands stenciled over the breasts, and when she stretched J. said he saw her tummy jiggle, gelatinously.

I’m not just going to rag on the way these dudes looked – honest. Because the band could flat out play, shifting gears like the Deerhoof-loving spastics they have it in them to be. The problem, and it was, as I hinted at, was a big one – the singer, whose vocal stylings were the unholy union of Yoko Ono and the archetypal screaming airplane baby. Also, she kept shaking her hands like she’d touched something hot, and squatting as she belched out some horrible noise or other. I remember telling J. I couldn’t figure out if Ponytail were the best band I’d ever seen or the worst – but, it was definitely one of the two. If they do turn out to be geniuses, they’re the kind who make records you buy and maybe even like (you’re not a poser, are you?) but that you absolutely never listen to. “Oh, this? Yes, it’s groundbreaking and wonderful, I support them 100 percent – but please, anything else.”

Another very Ponytail moment – after the first song, which I think was the first like 95 percent of the crowd had ever heard these folks, the singer asked for more vocals in her monitor, to which some guy quickly yelled, “Don’t do it!” That was funny; not funny were the jackasses who filled the spaces between Ponytail jams with impressions of whatever idiot noise the singer had made in the previous jam. Don’t you guys know that it’s far more polite to clap quietly, wait a couple of days and then type several hundred words bashing the hell out of a group of well-meaning (probably) kids? I’ll even end with a special note:

Dear Ponytail,

Don’t stop believing. Just lose the singer, k?

Love,

Austin, TX

a different sort of march madness

Someone at my apartment complex drives a truck whose tailgate is decorated with what is unmistakably a Confederate flag. It’s not even worth checking to see if other vehicles are similarly emblazoned – being that I live in Texas, it’s an absolute certainty.

And but it’s uncertain just what these symbols are supposed to mean, exactly – different things to different people. Some folks probably believe the bit about reclaiming some part of their cultural heritage; you know, it’s about “Southern pride,” divorced of its meaning with regards to slavery and racial turmoil. Some people just like to provoke others (a habit I can get behind, most of the time). Some were probably just too lazy to scrape it off after winding up with the vehicle secondhand. And some probably still believe all that racist bullshit, and fuck you buddy but it’s my ra-ight.

It’s this last group that concerns me, and that should concern you.

See, there’s still a Ku Klux Klan. Crazy, right? Now, for the most part the KKK seems to have dropped the bed sheet and pointed hood gimmick. They’ve kept the silly titles – the group is chockfull of grand dragons and wizards and so forth, to the point where they remind me of nothing more than a bunch of D&D nerds, shaking their 12-sided die between bouts of acne-cream application.

No, now they wear suits, or at least the higher-ups do. I know this because the Klan came to the sleepy little town I’ve been working in for the past year. I didn’t go to the rally – I suppose I could’ve gone to help cover it for the newspaper which employs me, but I had bigger things to attend to – namely Texas A&M’s second-round NCAA tournament game versus Louisville, which was an absolute nail biter from start to finish. The two events were coincidental, and as sports editor it was easy for me to opt out of checking out the sideshow at the county courthouse.

The Klan’s impending arrival was a big story for a couple of weeks before this last weekend (speaking of which, what do they have against St. Patrick’s Day?), and the primary thrust of that story, to these already-jaundiced eyes, was the city’s utter inability to handle a shitstorm of this magnitude. Driving down the city’s main street the morning of the event, side streets downtown were already taped off, and a chain-link fence encircled the central courthouse square (which was where the Klan would be; gawkers were on the other side, and there were lots of them, and not just locals) giving the normally quiet area the look of a steel cage match. A comparison that is perhaps not wholly inadequate. (The crowd’s general mien was one of amped-up tension paired with a thirst for blood/spectacle, a phenomenon recognizable to the Hulkster and his ilk)

And there were fights – tensions were high, and the crowd got what it wanted (as did the Klan, as did the anti-Klan group that follows them all around the state), if only for a few moments. Undercover police numbered in the hundreds; one of the anti-Klan dudes evidently provoked an area man who probably wouldn’t mind being id’d as a white supremacist. A few punches were thrown; three jerks landed in jail.

That was the story to me, a person who didn’t go to the blasted thing: they’re all pretty much jerks, the whole lot of them. They chose this place as a staging ground for their petty grandstanding – both the Klan and their antagonists, both locked in an eternal parasitic struggle.

One of the grand dragons made a comment, quoted (somewhat) approvingly in our coverage to the effect that ‘the only hate I sense is coming from the other side of the fence.’ Some of the Klan members wore shirts that made the following bold statement: “Hate sucks.” And what a classic move – jockeying for the role of the aggrieved and disenfranchised, angling to be put upon simply for their cherished, long-held beliefs of “white pride and brotherhood” & etc.

But here’s the thing: nothing’s more disingenuous than a bully dressed up in the language/clothes of victimhood. It’s flat-out dishonest, and anyone who falls for their routine is even dumber than the Klan members themselves.

Much later that night, after sending off the paper around midnight, I parked in that same courthouse lot that hours before had been cordoned off for the sake of a couple dozen wolves in sheep’s clothing. See, there’s a bar across the street – I walked in, waited for something like 15 minutes for one of the overwhelmed bartenders to give me a couple of Shiners before last call, to no avail, and walked out.

But the worst part? The aforementioned Klan sympathizer, a big dude with head/face/neck tattoos, and a swastika inked onto his belly (a fact revealed by a photo taken following the fight, during which he apparently lost his shirt), was there with a little baby girl (her name: Eternity, which interestingly enough equals the amount of time she'll regret said name. It's unclear if she was named after the fragrance or the concept), who he had no qualms with holding up high for all to see, right near the chain-link fence. Daddy and baby even posed for a picture for the paper - with pops proudly holding out his little girl's baby arm extended from her chest: "Sieg Hiel."

Our reporter in the field said the profane chants of the crowd would linger in the city's collective memory, but I disagree. The lasting image was published on our front page, an innocent, harmless human soon to be perverted against her fellow humans by the ignorance of her forebears. Teach your children well.

solipsism, with occasional drinking

“You drew me in like mustard on a sandwich.”

Why would you keep setting up obstacles for yourself in the direct path of a goal – one that you ostensibly want to achieve, one that promises to offer a significant upgrade in any number of different, important areas – that is low-hanging fruit, just right there for the picking?

And so I’m going to break up this sub-LiveJournal pouting with an account of what I did Saturday. It was the sort of night that is going to stick out, if only for the number of unique things that happened, yet a record of it also seems necessary. Anyway: my Saturdays (and the idea of weekends) have been shot since I took the title of Sports Editor. Those are the breaks when you’re a staff of one, and a perfectionist (of sorts). But last weekend was slow with regards to local sports, which is all I’m interested for the purposes of my job anyhow. My responsibility was trimmed from four pages to two, itself a very attractive proposition. And so while things still took time to coalesce, I was done – and had helped edit the rest of the front section fairly early. And I sort of invited myself along with a co-worker and her husband, both of whom are exceptionally rad & down-to-earth people, to a party in a shitty little down just down the highway, in Bluff Dale. After the scare of a few week’s back (happy birthday, York, we’re stupid assholes) I was just a passenger, and went home to begin drinking/get ready.

What it makes me wonder is obvious: is this something I actually want? And beyond that, am I even capable of articulating wants beyond the base and basic – beyond ‘I want a beer/pizza/day off/girlfriend’? I’m not even sure I can fathom what I really want. I can define things I don’t want, and perhaps states I’d prefer – I’d like to not worry, be anxious, feel pain – you know, really gut-level primitive stuff. Career? Sorry, that’s something that would be figured out in some non-reptilian part of my brain, and that just isn’t a place I’m really capable of reaching at this juncture.

So we arrive at the old Bluff Dale saloon, and it’s cold as balls. I’m wearing a sweater, and sneakers, both of which mark me as an outsider like instantly. This is cowboy country, after all – it’s all scuffed boots and heavy beige jackets, except for the one dude wearing what appeared to be a silk (and I think light blue, but this was by the light of a campfire – but I’m getting ahead of myself) ascot of some sort. Yeah, it reminds me of the “Of Mice and Men” character who keeps a glove (both?) filled with Vaseline, too (looking back at least. I can’t make those sort of connections when full of beer). But so here’s the scene – a beat-down old saloon, and out back, folks huddled around a trash can filled with flames. There was a trailer/barbecue pit, too, but I didn’t eat. The band was all strings, and played old country standards. More importantly, they also played a Creedence cover (after launching into an obligatory anti-Cross Canadian Ragweed rant that I agreed with 100 percent – i.e. There’s already a CCR, a better one, and now we’re going to murder one of their classics). The song was “Lodi,” incidentally, which I first encountered as covered by my fave band of all time, Pavement. I clapped along and mouthed the words when I knew them.

The sum total of all of this mental hand-wringing (a ridiculous image to be sure) is a sort of queasy ambivalence. Because although it has been proven ad infinitum that my current situation is basically unsustainable – unless it turns out that all I really want is something to whine about, in which case, hey presto, I’m right where I want to be – I’m still dragging my feet when it comes to actually doing anything about it. I’m writing this when I should be revising my resume, and that chore itself should’ve been knocked out days ago.

As I became more intoxicated, I became more adventurous (natch). There was a cute young girl I had tried making eyes at from across the fire – although the preceding is a grievous bit of romanticization (word?). Hitting on cute girls is hardly my forte, and this attempt was surely as ham-handed as one might imagine, although I’d argue that’s all part of my charm. Short story short: it didn’t work out. She (Shelby?) was a Tech grad, and lived in Bluff Dale, and said something to the effect of ‘I’m sure I’ll see you around.’ Not at all likely, dear. Before that, or perhaps after, I got the band inside to play “Lodi” a second time, and it was – somehow – better than the first time around. We left eventually and I played pool spectacularly badly at a local bar, and was delivered home at closing time, at which point I passed out.

I hear they’re doing it again in about a month, but God knows if I’ll still be here/up for it.

An ill-timed epiphany, 7 years late

I just had a (possibly obvious) epiphany regarding Ralph Nader’s quixotic and some would say ruinous 2000 run for president. In terms of policy, it doesn’t really make sense – as in how the hell do you stand any reasonable chance of anything when your primary issue is something as wonky and difficult to sell as campaign finance reform? But when viewed in terms of what he should be remembered for – consumer advocacy – it makes perfect sense.

The whole business about there being negligible differences between the Republican and Democratic parties – considering I was myself a teenaged Nader devotee at the time, I seem to remember a now-awkward away message quoting the candidate on the subject of the parties being masks wearing different make-up – maybe doesn’t make so much sense in a straight-up George W. Bush vs. Al Gore sense. Most people would probably agree that those two men of privilege would have taken the nation on massively different courses (or tried to, at least).

BUT – and here’s the epiphany, the key is to think of Nader circa 2000, champion of the Green and other obscure third Parties etc., as less a politician and more of a consumer advocate. What he was really offering, more than a viable candidacy or even just a chance to tell the Man (in this case, both of them) to screw himself (though that was tempting to a considerable number of voters), was simple: more information, and another choice – totally reasonable goals, because what else are voters but consumers of government?

So it figures that this quote-unquote Movement, in the guise of the Green Party and all the passionately disaffected (in this case, not quite the oxymoron it would seem to be, I think) politically-inclined folks out there have a suitably famous figurehead to put on the ballot – someone with name regonition/cred.

And so in addition to storking Nader’s ego, the whole thing made sense because how hard is it to believe he genuinely felt the USA was now itself “unsafe at any speed” and careening toward certain disaster due to cowardly and corrupt polls shilling to keep themselves entrenched in the District. Good soldier/egomaniac that he is, how could he refuse a chance to Make An Important And Needed Statement about how incestuous and sealed-off the whole process had become?

Because it surely was/is that, but maybe it always has been, and maybe even idealists like Nader should and/or do know that. On the other hand, is it kind of sickening to reduce something as evidently noble as our beloved form of government – see for instance old saws like “it isn’t perfect but it’s the best there is” regarding same – to another fucking product, with the same battery of focus groups and taste tests and so forth. Sickening and absolutely true.

five fragments

- So apparently I frequent Whataburger far too much. It’s not like I’ve developed a paunch or anything, but I had a moment last week, while eating lunch at CiCi’s with a pair of co-workers, when this blond girl sitting nearby looked really familiar. I couldn’t place her, but it became clear this afternoon as I was parked at the drive-thru window, waiting on my No. 5. The girl, who in all honesty didn’t look too bad at the pizza parlor, was stationed behind a register. Those visors really don’t do anyone any justice, do they? A mystery solved.

- Most sports announcers are either dumb or vaguely douche-y, but Mr. Al Michaels outdid his cohort this evening during the Colts-Patriots broadcast. Referring to the much-hyped battle between Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, Michaels let this stinker go (paraphrased): “Not to overstate this, but this game is like a paint-off between Michelangelo and Da Vinci.” Perhaps a breath before he had called the two quarterbacks “artists.” Memo to Al: the fat guy next to you is supposed to be the stupid one.

- For at least a couple of weeks now, I’ve had this idea bouncing around that I’m just going to put down, barebones, because it doesn’t seem to be coalescing, and besides, it’s not like I write for Frequency anymore – where else would it go? And probably I’ll only be able to sketch out a vague outline here, but it deals with two of my favorite current rock bands, TV on the Radio and the Hold Steady. Both have released terrific albums this year, and I’ve had the chance to catch concerts from each group over the past few months. And I feel like there’s a sort of thematic link that I can’t quite articulate, but it deals with the idea of rock concerts being communal experiences – that these groups can quite literally bring people together, albeit at some shitty rock club with filthy, sticker-caked bathrooms, and that they can also foster a feeling of belonging to something greater – not just a “scene,” a phenomenon Hold Steady singer Craig Finn seems particularly contemptuous of, but more like a feeling that there are others out there who get it, whatever that may be. (I warned this would be vague.) And beyond that there seems to be a dash of religious feeling – after seeing TV on the Radio three times, their shows reminded me of nothing more than my perception of a religious revival, with singer Tunde Adubimpe’s flailing arms and charismatic (yes in that sense) persona. Finn & co. have it too – last year’s “Separation Sunday” dealt with Catholicism and faith, and on new track “Citrus” Finn talks of how barrooms and taverns can, through an alcoholic haze, bring sad, lost souls together. And for this listener, both groups are among the absolute best concerns going currently.

- Here’s a segue – after finishing up at work ~11:30 Saturday night, I was in a good enough mood to return to the crappy, black-lit college bar a few blocks from my apartment before turning in. As I walked in, I asked if there was a cover. No, I learned, there wasn’t – and by the way, the band was real good. Naturally they were the sort of Texas country band who revere crap bands like Reckless Kelly and seem to think that twangy covers of Sublime are somehow needed at this late date, but they did cover Neil Young (“Keep on Rockin’ In the Free World,” if you’re wondering). But what was of the most interesting to yours truly was their name – as I took pains to inform one old pal that night before I made the brief drive home – the J.C. Carpenter band. Initially, I was just disgusted with the boring methodology: I mean come on, the best part of being in a band, as near as I, someone with nearly no musical capacity whatsoever, can tell is the act of choosing a name. Here are a few that a group of college friends and I came up with one summer, as we toyed with the idea of buying guitars and drums from thrift shops and making horrible noise (never realized): Manimal, Unclaimed Freight, Dick Cheney’s Pacemaker. Here’s one I made up just now: Unpredictable Urine. See, it’s easy. Later I realized the name probably had to be some sort of Biblical allusion – I mean, come on, “J.C.” Carpenter? And yet, believe it or not, none of the psuedoreligio gobbledegook I talk about in paragraph 3 came in to play. To the best of my knowledge there were no songs of praise or beloved dusty hymns. You can probably find them on myspace, in any case.

- After downloading it on a whim, I’m really liking the Joggers’ “With a Cape and a Cane.” Also, finished “Wonder Boys” this afternoon – very enjoyable read. The movie was fun, as is its source material, natch. Semi-anxiously awaiting Dave Eggers’ new novel, “What is the What,” which was written in an autobiographical fashion in the voice of one of Sudan’s Lost Boys. Reviews I’ve seen – and taken with a grain of salt, as they were all direct links from the McSweeneys Web empire – have been uniformly positive, and I’m hopeful, even though nothing he’s published since “A Heartbreaking Work..” has hit me the way that youthful yawp did. I liked “You Shall Know Our Velocity” well enough, and “How We Are Hungry” had its moments – but, basically, he’s still riding on the goodwill generated by the memoir. I’ve meant to reread it; not sure if it’d grab me in the way it did when I was 15/16 – in that respect, it’s sort of like Salinger or something. Perhaps I’d like it even more, though – after revisiting Vonnegut a few months ago, it was easy to remember why I was so quick to devour his stuff as a teenager. The new book is allegedly on its way. I’m sure that, at the very least, it will be remarkably well designed.

funk you

The dude welding in the parking lot should have been a portent, probably.

(Sentences I never thought I'd write, No. 247)

Just returned from Bostock's where tonight several insufferable funk bands played. Well, the first was funk - they had a bongo player to supplement their drummer - but I've seen (ie listened to while I sat at the bar) to so many terrible bands since I've lived here (6 months? Jesus) that it almost has no impact. I'm still, as I type, trying to shed the sneer I seem to wear when I walk into that damn place - at least when a band is playing. Because I disapprove, and somehow, I think it's a good idea to show that disapproval on my own personal visage.

It should perhaps be noted, now, that I am somewhat buzzed. I would not say drunk, because I just drove home, and arrived safely, as always.

Just before I left, someone mussed my hair, from behind. I did not see who it was, but I assume it was a bartender (female) who was off tonight. This makes me sad, because the whole thing seems terribly patronizing - ie 'here barfly, some contact with the female sex you spend the whole night lusting after to no end.' 'Tis a stage I'd rather I never really wind up at - that of the dude in the Mavericks shirt to my left, middleaged (50s, likely), and still frequenting a "college" bar (Bostocks is in essence right across the street from the campus of a Division II university, and the majority of its patrons are coeds looking to get drunk enough to find one another attractive enough to sleep with). That was an especially long parenthetical digression.

Anyway, I'm back home, the Winamp is still on random. Cam'ron, "Purple Haze," a record I have to say I don't think I really "get." Beloved by Pitchfork... eh -

And so it bears repeating that the first band had what I think was a jazz flute player. It's possible I imagined the whole thing, but why would I do so? I definitely heard flute from my seat on the bar. And it sounded fucking terrible. Somehow these kids were buying into this awful funk-rock shit, but honestly, it was one of the worst things I've suffered through, aurally. I was expecting (fully expecting) a crap Texas country band - maybe I was inured to it, maybe I was ready and OK about ignoring the same trite Texas references and the lame country twang. But instead I was assailed by full-on funk bullshit. Absolutely terrible. If I had the name, I'd include it to warn others.

I drank Killian's all night, and now I'm home listening to Girl Talk, the club mix of modern hiphop, indie classics, etc. Pretty terrific, even if it has already passed from the favor of hipsters the nation over. Oh, and I tried to ask out a cute blond in a white and blue striped shirt. Apparently she's an education major and is about to graduate soon. (Or, as self-aware as I of course am, she simply didn't find me attractive enough to give the time of day to, and then invented a simple excuse to ignore the dude in t-shirt (TRAIL OF DEAD, yo) and flip flops who was posted up at the bar like a straight-up alkie. Which, honestly, is a frightening image. Let me down gently -and she did.

Tonight was a debacle, basically. If your band has a horn in it, you're terrible. AMEN.

Now I've got worry

It's nearly midnight Sunday, and by all rights I should feel much sleepier than I do. I'm well aware that this next week is going to be crunch time at work, as I'm basically responsible for all editorial content within a 32-page high school football tab. Copy is due Friday, pictures will be taken Saturday, which is busy anyway, owing to the standard four-page Sunday sports section. It's a sad fact that I'm freaking out over this a bit now, and that anxiety is just going to grow exponentially over the next week.

The weekend was busy, too, with two round trips to Fort Worth - Friday and Saturday nights - six hours at work Saturday to knock out the section, a feat I'm particularly proud of. Went out to a dive bar nearby the campus of TCU Friday, then Saturday we had an excellent meal at Pappadeaux, then saw "Talladega Nights" for $4 at a theater that served beer. I'd never been to a place like that before, and it just so happens that this movie goes extremely well with a couple of pitchers. Really enjoyed the movie, which is about as good as you'd expect - ie terrific, and even better if you've got a bit of a buzz. For me, "Anchorman" will probably always be Ferrell's best, for a variety of reasons, but TN was a lot of fun.

In any event, I need to sleep. Tomorrow I may need to throw myself at the mercy of my publisher, begging for no more than 1 page per day, so that I can focus on the tab stuff. I feel confident that I will get everything done - that there is time, that I can hone in on what I need to do, and that it will be good - I just wish, quite naturally I think, that I could skip ahead a week, because I'm also confident that its going to be a lot of work (& a rather extraordinary stressful experience). Again and again I return to Nike's hackneyed trademark - just do it. As the week drags on, expect a few choice expletives to be thrown in there for flavoring.