Out of the Din

One of my pet peeves is talking to people in noisy rooms. Even hot boys. Sorry, hunks. I don't even want to talk to you! Not during performances, especially if our friends just started playing, no matter how long I pretended not to stare at your crotch during your set and no matter how many pictures of said crotch were captured via iPhone and promptly sent to my sister in Hawaii and my best friend in San Francisco. Understand this: I don't like reading lips; I prefer kissing them. If you want to exchange words, let's go somewhere I won't have to apologize for having nodded idiotically to questions clearly requiring "no" answers.

My irritation with such cognitively compromised conversation falls under the larger umbrella of my least loved thing: hampered communication.

That is why I don't want to go to the movies with you, either. It is particularly offensive as an idea for a first date--and not just because I am bored by most movies and spend much of my theater time calculating how I might adjust my schedule to compensate for these 1.5-2 lost hours. My primary concern is this: if you're into me, don't you want to talk to me??? How else do you propose expeditiously arriving at the point at which either of us knows if we're interested or not? I don't want to be wedged up next to some stranger with whom I've probably only chatted under the worst possible circumstances, those cacophonous club settings. And I'll tell you this much: I'm not into you if you are into the squandering of time. Yuck! No! And especially not mine!!! Why don't we race to this finish line? Ask me to an organic dinner. We'll talk. If you seem more devoted than despicable, you may be the recipient of a rather innocent hug at the end of it.

I'm very serious about this! That said, I recently made an exception by conversing over a loud background provided by Spaceland after the record release set of our studiomates, Radar Bros. A music friend of ours was praising "Holiday" and wanted to know everything about its origins and, furthermore, if he could provide Vespa boy with some form of corporal punishment. I gave him a crystallized version, and he was horrified by...wait for it...my behavior! Though he immediately recognized the boy as a sociopath, he also wasted no time in calling me out on being such a lamb.

"You seem so strong on stage and on the recordings. I wouldn't have expected this from you!"

I thought to myself, "I seem strong on stage?!?"

I so admired his astute observations and his honesty in reporting them that it didn't matter too much that they were being relayed at length under less than optimal sonic circumstances. It was that refreshing.

I have sometimes wished that more of my friends had been stern with me two years ago when this was all going down. But whatever. I like what came of it; I'm not the pushover I used to be. He and I agreed that, at the very least, I got some amazing songs out of that mess and that, quite like our impaired interlocution which spontaneously emerged out of the din that night, every droplet of experience is worth something.