Bring It Down

The Pop Explosion's over now. Time to clean up all this gross pop everywhere.

Friday night I had a date with Amber to have dinner and see the Husband & Knife (with The Drone) show at Gus'. H&K(wTD) were amazing. Quietly, undynamically trucking through KC's beautiful and subdued songs on guitar, cello, keyboards, and a couple of drums — it was exactly what I felt like hearing. KC has released an album of new material on Bandcamp that you can buy from him as a gorgeous booklet of black-and-white night photography that comes with a download code for the music. Here's one of the songs on it.


Unfortunately, the date itself was kind of a drag. I was really tired going into it and had a 20-minute nap beforehand to try and energize myself. That turned out to be a big mistake. I woke up in a super cranky mood and couldn't seem to shake it. I warned Amber upon arrival that I felt crabby, and I tried not to aim it in her direction. But I ended up treating her meanly. After unsuccessfully trying to cheer me up for awhile, she started treating me meanly in return, and we passed that bad mood back and forth all evening.

Dinner at our favourite sushi spot was awful. They were busy and couldn't serve us fast enough that we would make it to the Gus' show on time. We sulked, bickered, and generally embarrassed each other and ourselves in public. There were some tears.

The music and friendly atmosphere at Gus' really helped, as did a couple of beers. Or at least they seemed to. But the mood came back as soon as we went back to Amber's place. By that time we were both exhausted, so we went to sleep without resolving things. In the morning, the beers and late night came back to haunt us by turning a discussion about what had gone wrong into a full-blown argument. We both felt attacked and got defensive. All remarks and behaviour taken badly due to the bad mood became the other person's fault. She cried, and I left.

I'm sure we'll resolve this. We've had worse fights before. But the awful feeling of the original bad mood has stuck with me all weekend. I saw Moonsocket and Besnard Lakes at the Marquee last night with Alison and a couple of other friends, and both bands made some undeniably great music. Yet, even as I was enjoying it, I was still somehow not enjoying MYSELF, if that makes any sense. I again had a couple of beers to try and remedy that, which was probably the worst of all possible solutions. It didn't help, anyway. This morning is cold and rainy, and I'm glad because all I want to do is lie in bed and feel bad about myself. What a long and self-perpetuating funk!

It's like a general dissatisfaction with everything in my life and a lack of hope that anything can be done about it. My job, my bands, my friends, every song I've ever written, and every way I've ever treated or felt about another person all suck. People in general suck. All my possessions are garbage. I'm out of shape and tired all the time. My meditation practice doesn't seem to be getting me anywhere. I can't trust myself or anyone else to come up with any practical suggestions, because we all have our own selfish, misguided agendas, and they all conflict with each other, as evidenced by the messed up modern world we are in the process of destroying by desperately clinging to it.

Never shoulda had that nap.