sunday, november 18th
smog
me and tim walked thru skeleton tree streets, through the friday night mist and sparkles of this town by the sea, towards the palace to see smog.
i was feeling kinda wretched, and foolish for following my dreams. 
we sat and watched the milk and honey band with nicky, who wound a multicoloured scarf around her neck and talked to me about america. after they finished, i checked out smog tees with tim, while nicky talked to the girls from electralane.
i saw my chum dean who i haven't seen in a time standing by the stage. we both greeted each other with a friendly, 'what are you doing here?' i like dean because he is opinionated and loud and funny. his girl, zarah came over and launched into a frenzied attack on the second support band, meanwhile back in communist russia. 'i can't believe the singer was going on about getting boy's pubic hair in her teeth! she's only about fifteen. i bet she just got her english gcse and now she thinks she's some sylvia plath-esque poet. i am going to hunt her down and kill her!' and maybe she did.
dean and me lit cigarettes and talked pavement. i love to talk pavement. dean is pretty much anti-spiral, so he hasn't even checked out psoi yet, which of course made me launch into a big speil bout how psoi are really quite something wonderful, and at least listen to the album soon. 
i love smog because the tunes let me sink into my bed and the arms of my boy feeling wintery and warm at the same time. i love the way bill callahan can sing, 'in the grocery store
in line behind a mother and a child,
i'm going to take take that child,
i'm going to take take that child' over a cheerful lil melody. i like the fact that he goes to sleep as the sun also rises, and that he never stops wandering through sleepy villages down south.
i paint myself an idolised picture of bill callahan, but he always lives up to it live. he gets up on his tip toes and shakes his knees together, elvis-esque. his voice is like an ocean. his eyes burn deep into everyone standing near him. he shakes his head inbetween lines. i am always floored.
as he walked on to the stage, dean said, 'he always looks so fucking ill, white and pasty.'
'he doesn't look ill, dean. he looks perfect!' i hissed.
'bill! you're looking really ill!' dean shouted.
i knocked him in the stomach with my elbow and he laughed. boys.
they started with i was a stranger, a song i am digging right now, for the 'why do you women in this town let me look at you so bold when you have seen what i was in the last town?' line alone. it was the coolest.
when he sang all your woman things, i thought i would melt into the floor.
'how could i ignore yr left breast, yr right breast
how could i ignore yr hardness, yr softness and yr mercy?
well it's been seven years and the thought of your name still makes me weak in the knees.'
i think everyone has a perfect stranger. a person who they don't know at all well, or perhpas not at all. maybe it's the girl who works at the library, or the boy who's singing on stage. but if they asked you to pack all yr things and run away with them, you just would. bill callhan is my perfect stranger.
nothing prepares me for how perfect smog sounds. smog makes sense on a wintery night such as this, when yr breath becomes outdoor clouds, and the stars seem so cold.
on the way home we sang 'song' and talked about how the drummer also drummed for will oldham and is in dirty three and what a lucky man he is! we went into my huge sky blue kitchen for coffee and i couldn't fall aslee for hours afterwards, it had been too good. it had been too good. listen to smog.
suds at