i feel so special and lucky that out of the two whole shows the mountain goats played this season, one of them was in LA at the echo. you better believe i was there last night too, and of course they killed it. i love that man, honestly. his songs knock me down with their bittersweet power and i have yet to hear one i don’t like. most are even better live. and when they upgraded from guitar-and-bass (love that bassist/backing vocal guy, by the way. very good complement to the main man) to a full four piece, adding electric guitar and a drummer, to play ‘palmcorder yanja’… we’re talking rock and roll dance party of greatness. me and joe loved it — except that they didn’t play ‘no children’ because, as john said on stage, ‘i didn’t bring my machine that i hook up to my guitar to play it’, whatever that means — but a better indicator might be that our friend dan, who had never even heard their songs and came along for the hell of it, admitted afterward that it was ‘really fucking good’. that’s what i’m talking about.

so now i have another new year’s resolution that is way late but still: collect all the mountain goats LP’s that are available on CD. i think there are like 9 or something. wish i had thought of that before my birthday.

also very notably: i think this will be the first valentines day i am excited about in approximately five years. about fucking time, cupid you little bitch.

in less fun news, i think i had the first nightmare analogous to a real life situation i’ve had in years last night. in the dream i borrowed my aunt’s SUV, then took it out in hollywood where my friends trashed it and set the inside on fire. and i couldn’t stop them for some reason, but felt slightly better because at least it was parked and on fire while a 20-car pileup happened in a nearby intersection (?). then i had to tell my aunt it was my fault, in front of my parents, and felt like a totally dumb and helpless jackass for letting it happen, and had to pay for it by refinancing all my student loans through some guy in canada. believe it or not though, these events have a rough figurative correlation with a situation at work here this week. have fun guessing how that one works out.