All my lessons came with some pain

Touch and Go had their 25th anniversary this weekend. Rock rock rock. Ted Leo was there and he did that song again, sans bleeding, and then closed with a Stiff Little Fingers cover. Awesome. I mean, they didn't chose the best song, they should have covered Alternative Ulster. You hear that? That's rock snobbery. I only had to deal with it on Friday, thank G-d, after which I pushed the offender onto the red line tracks and went to the rest of the shows solo.

I have heard about the !!! experience, their relentlessly danceable punk rock, and peeps were not lying. The thing with a sexy lead singer who is trying to be sexy is that, yes, I will usually think they are sexy. I am not a hard sell, I just says to them: thanks for trying. This guy, this Nic Offer, he has my hairdo and he slapped himself across the face, so he's in. What pushed it to the next level was how that little sparkplug made me think that I was the sexiest person there; it's an industrial park in Chicago filled with defensive and dirty childhumans, it's not Vegas, but still. Good job. Props all around.

The real transcendental moment for me was seeing Monorchid on Sunday, because I love Chris Thomson, not in some real way but in the way of wanting to own every record he every scream-yelled on, getting him to record my voice mail message, making him laugh. Standing in the rain in my favorite coat, thinking that I am awesome for seeing shows by myself, waiting for them to bring it on, I got to ride my personal time machine back to 1992. I was listening to Super Genius while cleaning an accounting office in Perrysburg, OH. "Mean Hot and Blessed" was the single sexiest song I had ever heard. I had to dig around for the cassette tape for an hour tonight but I found it and it is fantastic. Oh, to fall in love again. I listened to Las Mordidas and Let Them Eat and I hung up my custom-made "Chris loves Katy" poster. Further, further--because that's what we do, we push things forward--I am going to celebrate my renewed love for Chris Thomson as a heralding of sorts. Sweater weather returns. Irrational fears of tattooed hipsters die like leaves on trees. The humid climate of self disgust is washed away with a nice cold front and cleansing rain. There is no fear! There is only rock.