What in the hell …

The best I’ve seen is where someone repeatedly scratched “of doom” into the metal plate with the instructions on the face of a hand dryer. “Hold hands under spout of doom.” “Press button of doom.” “Rub hands of doom.” That kind of thing. Fantastic. I don’t recall where this was. I think it was in a bar in Saint Catharines, Ontario.

The second best was a sharpie scrawled “fuck the fuck off.” Also fantastic. An unpleasant yet appealing and succicnt statement of how I feel sometimes. Inarticulate, misanthropic, lonely. I think this was somewhere in Ohio, the bathroom of a vegetarian restaurant or a bar.

The third best is one I haven’t actually seen. My wife told me about it. It’s in the women’s bathroom in the show space at the Triple Rock. “Love punk rock, hate punk rockers.” Absolutely.

We talked about this over breakfast today (lovely banana pancakes that she made, and wicked strong coffee - our coffee maker broke and we accidentally bought a too small french press to replace it, it makes like one medium sized cup of coffee so we just make the coffee super strong then add a lot of milk or more water). Screeching Weasel provided our meal’s recorded musical accompaniment. At one point A commented about one of the songs that it was a very traditional type of pop love or crush song, except done by someone who is apparently very unhappy. A lot of the Screeching Weasel songs are like that. They’re sad in an angry way, not so much in a wisftul or vulnerable way. An unpleasant yet appealing and succicnt statement of how I feel sometimes. Sad misanthropy with pop hooks. Excellent.

Some of the songs particularly on the newer records are about being annoyed or worse with punk rockers and their culture. I remember reading a review of one of the newer Screeching Weasel records in one of the hallowed punk zines a few years ago, probably Maximum Rock and Roll, maybe Punk Planet. It said something like “Dear Ben Weasel, since you hate punk so much, why don’t you stop listening to it, stop reading zines, stop going to shows, and stop making records?” I remember thinking this was mildly clever on the writer’s part and absolutely useless and stupid as an actual record review, since it said nothing about the record. I can relate to the sentiment (imputed) there. So much of punk is so annoying or worse. But music is so good, when it’s good. Non-punk rock shows, A commented this morning, are usually a lot better than punk shows in that the crowds are so much more pleasant and less irritating. The music isn’t as good, though, and the sentiment isn’t often quite right. Hence the bathroom graffiti. No choice, I suppose. Love punk rock, hate punk rockers.

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In other music-and-me related news, my friend Todd made me a song (click here then click “Final Countdown for Nate”). Also, looking for something else today I found a copy of Sugar’s File Under: Easy Listening album and Fugazi’s Instrument. I don’t mean I found them at a store or something. I found them in my apartment in with some other CDs that are not (yet?) alphabetized and mixed in with most of the collection; that is, they’re newer purchases. I had no idea I bought them. FUEL is one of my favorite albums so it’s funny to have forgotten buying it and never having played it (I’ve had it on a copied tape for many years), and Fugazi, well, I’ve nothing more to say. I don’t recall buying these albums, and it’s odd to have forgotten owning them.