August 9th, 2002. Friday
 
 

    Yesterday the most worthwhile thing I did all day was to discover the "Missed Connections" section on Craigslist.org. It's uniformly hilarious.  I was intrigued. I read every page.  All these people writing "I saw you on the 6 Train, Grand Central. You were wearing a red tank top and looked mesmerizing" kind of stuff.  I, how I yearn to be someone's Missed Connection.  I'm thinking about writing some. I thought at first I'd make them up, but then I thought it'd be funnier to pick random people on the train in the morning and jot down good descriptions of them and write them up.  I thought this was sort of mean, so I decided to only do this for fashionable hipsters who could stand being knocked down a peg or two. Come to think of it, why should I bother making up flowery praise to fool them, when I could just say "I fucking hate you!"?
    So last night I had the first rehearsal with my neighbor Rachel's band.  I was a little nervous.  I got to the studio the same time as Rachel, and Dorothy was already there.  She didn't seem any different to me, though she'd just won more than $600,000 on The Mole. Of course, I didn't meet her until last year, after she'd already won.   Still, I wasn't sure how to acknowledge that fact.  I wasn't going to say anything, but Rachel was talking to her about it, so I felt obligated to say congrats.  She said people at work were already being like "You have to buy us lunch now."  It must've been really hard to keep it a secret for a year.  I told her she could tell her favor-asking co-workers "Hey, here's another secret that I can finally tell: I fucking hate you!"  I don't think she found this very funny at all.
    I was a little nervous, practicing with them for the first time.  Plus, the equipment at this place sounded like shite.  It sounded like you took an amp and put it in a paper bag. So I couldn't really hear what I was playing unless I turned it up to a level that was way too loud, and when I could hear it sounded like shit.  They said it sounded fine, but I was pretty disappointed in my playing. I had just heard the songs two days ago, but I still thought I could've done better.  When I auditioned for them before, I was playing like a man possessed. I still don't know how I did that. I hope it wasn't a fluke. I believe the new drummer had a lot to do with it too.  It wasn't very tight, kind of all over the place, and that really affected me.  Rachel and Dorothy, while competent at their instruments, aren't the best players. But I was still really uncomfortable playing with them. They're good at what they have to do, and I was just a mess.

    So I've gotten about a dozen emails from Rachel in the last two hours, explaining this situation:  The guitarist who i was stepping in for has decided that he in fact wants to play the show after all.  So I'm out.  At first, I was out, then she sent back a few manic emails, first apologizing, then saying fuck it, we should play the show with you. Then a lot of "why aren't you responding?" emails.  Finally, after we sorted everything out, he's playing, and I'm not. When I first agreed to play, she had told me that the guitarist- her boyfriend, by the way- still wasn't sure. The next time we talked about it, she asked when I could practice.  So I assumed I was playing, but was prepared for him to say he wanted back in.  His dad died last week, and he's had to deal with a lot.  So Rachel said she didn't think he should have to worry about the show. Personally, I thought it'd do a lot of good for someone to play some music.  It does wonders for the mood.
    Anyway, it was really interesting to watch Rachel have a nervous breakdown over the course of six emails in 10 minutes. By the last one I was feeling bad for her.  For some reason this sort of thing happens a lot to me. Someone does something shitty to me, and I end up feeling guilty about it somehow.  Anyway, I think the issues is finally resolved.  I'm not playing. It's a little disappointing, but not a total surprise.  And I wasn't really that comfortable playing with them. I just felt, at best, an outsider, and at worst, some sort of interloper.  It made me not want to give my suggestions on the songs.  So now that I'm not playing with Rachel, I feel better about giving her my opinions.  And at least now I have more free time, and more time to practice for the show with James at Tonic. One of the main reasons I was looking forward to the show with Rachel was that I thought it'd be a good warm-up for me before the Tonic show, seeing as I haven't played live in more than four years.  I was hoping the Tonic show, which is a pretty big venue, wouldn't be my first show in NY.  Now we're just jumping into the deep end.  Sink or swim I guess.
    By the way, I think it's a really bad idea to date someone you're in a band with. Especially when you start dating them right after they join your band.  Given the nature of relationships and bands, it only spells disaster.  Another way of looking at it is "You shouldn't shit where you eat."  The drummer who just quit Rachel's band was also dating her roommate.  Their breaking up and his quitting the band came about two days apart.  He was a pretty good drummer too.  Much better than the guy they have now.
    Anyway, it is now 5 PM. I only really have work to do on Fridays, and today has been a whopper.  A lot of it will probably be save for Monday, which is just as well.

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