The lead singer is the kind of girl that every girl thinks every guy SHOULD have a crush on. (not that they’re necessarily wrong, but that’s what they think.)

The strange thing for me was that the slow songs were the real highlights. There's a sublime beauty to the horns, glockenspiel, keyboards, percussion, backing vocals... Everybody else is going to focus on the fast dancy pop songs. But the gems are the slow songs.

Not the best parallel (because "Crash" is really maybe the best pop song ever [except not in the awful version with a guitar solo at the end of it as on the "Dumb and Dumber" soundtrack, but the original 2:32 single version]), but I'm reminded of The Primitives. Everybody focused on "Crash" and missed out on "Thru The Flowers". Close Lobsters come to mind, as well. Everybody thinks about the quirky pop songs, but the pretty songs like "In Spite Of These Times" are where the strongest songwriting lies.

I've posted both a fast and slow Love Is All song up above.

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As these are heated times, these Cold Tales should, I think, come in handy. As soon as he faces them, the reader will find that their coldness is deceptive, that they are very hot, that the author himself is within the oven, and that, like his fellow men, his body and soul blaze bright in an inferno of his own devising.

The tales are cold because they limit themselves to the hard facts. The author maintains that life neither rewards nor punishes, neither condemns nor saves; or, to be more exact, does not distinguish these complicated categories. He can only say that he lives, that he is not obliged to judge his own acts, to give them any significance whatsoever, to expect vindication at the end of his days. Instead, full of enthusiasm, we let the pen run freely. Soon, the words, the letters run together, become confused; in the end, we understand nothing, we revert to infancy, we are like children, their mouths stuffed with candy. And then, a mysterious babbling, spontaneous and noisy, bursts forth:

ba, ba, ba, ba . . . .

i went to LLLL last night after work. until 6 AM (they close at 6). won $55. was up $150 at one point, but i get QQ on the button on a five-handed table. limp limp to me. i raise to $12. call call. raise to $50 (and i thought it was a straddle, but i realize now it was a limp re-raise.). next guy folds. i got to $150. fold fold. back to the other guy and he goes all-in and covers me. i think about it for a minute. he says "can i show my cards? am i allowed to show my cards and not have them be ruled dead. what's the rule here?" everybody says it's OK. he shows me AA. i thank him and turn over QQ and fold. everybody looks at him like he's crazy. he says he's happy to make $175 bucks with AA and not have any risk of losing it. i had $250 behind, and everybody's kinda looking at me like i'm crazy for folding when i'm in for $150, but... another $250 to win $575... it just doesn't make sense.

it's an easy game there, though. i feel like i can beat it consistently.

There’s a block near my house that consistently smells like dogshit. I really find myself looking around and wondering if/where the urban legend “apartment of the crazy lady trapped under a six-foot stack of 1967 newspapers” is. And are the dogs eating the flesh from her limbs yet?

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What a strange time right now. Two of the most beautiful women I know, both of which I’m pretty sure I’ve been in love with, are pregnant. An old friend is moving back to Memphis. Another friend has finally, after 10 years of school around the globe, finally made it TO New York. Mitch just got married. Pete just got engaged.

Shira is the first New York woman I ever met. She’s also the first woman to ever make me feel attractive. I’d been with girls before; I’d dated before. But this was the first woman I ever met that was confident, attractive, secure, cosmopolitan, aggressive, strong, beautiful. In other words, completely out of my league. But she made me feel like I could maybe, just maybe, be in the same category.

When Men’s Health ran an article where they talked with four “real woman” about what they really want out of life, and they ran photos of Shira looking gorgeous, all my friends freaked out about how hot she was. And then they teased me about the fact that her ideal man was Jewish.

Nonetheless, I wasn’t her ideal man, but I still love her to death. And I’m excited for her and her husband to be having twins.

I am feeling like more of a kid than ever.

a sign in a store window the other day. seemed worthy of photographing.

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Copyright 2005 The Self-Starter Foundation

All rights reserved.

All materials contained on this site are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of The Self-Starter Foundation. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.

However, you may download material from The Self-Starter Foundation website (one machine readable copy and one print copy per page) for your personal, noncommercial use only.

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