totally crushed out

it's been an inordinate amount of time since i've updated this with a real post, one that i've put any sort of thought or effort into, especially since i consider myself a "writer/editor" (thought now i add "apprentice printer" to the list) when contemplating any sort of employment. i won't bore the hordes with updating my life until now with details of various minutiae of daily life or bad, prescient dreams, or my usual visions of bad luck, but i will offer a few odd facts to bring myself up to speed before offering admissions toward my own personal embarassment to you in hopes of forgiveness of the lateness of these sporadic updates. one: i'm getting kicked out of my apartment in brooklyn because the landlord got greedy, and to stay in the neighborhood as i'd like to do, will raise my rent by about $400. two, i pretty much finished the bike (my mom's old 1979 schwinn suburban) i was working on. the bike shop (NYC Bikes) did a really good job at getting the old positron one-piece crank set off and converting the American bottom bracket shell to an English threaded one (as well as fixing a few other things i screwed up), and they were really chill people too (thanks to Rich for his help), unlike too many bike shops i go into where people are total dicks in their narrow little cycling world. one thing i want to change out still is the chainring, which is a Rocket ring, a 110/130mm chainring that looks like it should be on a BMX bike. trying to keep things looking pretty '70s. three, (fanzine is moving into an office right across the hall from coeur noir and is getting almost legit.

re: title. is there an age limit to being crushed out? i'm really not sure what the rules are there, although i'd imagine being 67 years old and crushed out on a 23 year old, though she may possess some very admiral... err... admirable qualities (none of which are probably a pair of big tits, at least as far as i can predict my tastes as i'd see myself as a 67-year-old man), would probably be really creepy and weird to said young lady. but i suppose the limit on age range isn't completely violated in this case, although i think an exception could be made considering these ridiculous circumstances.

one scenario isn't really being crushed out in a sexually-attracted sense, but rather in an insecure, re-interpretation of an earlier (like 12 years ago earlier) age when i was really into this band called the spinanes, who were this girl/boy duo from seattle in the early 1990s, the heyday of sub pop. i was initially really into their first record manos because of the simplistic guitar/drum/voice combo, but the drummer left the band and the singer, rebecca gates, expanded the band's sound in strand and arches and aisles, in which she collaborated with some guys from the sea and cake on a few songs. i saw her play a few times in washington dc (at the height of my indie-rock nerdness; once at some urban outfitters on M street in georgetown, down the street from the exorcist stairs and close to the hotel i stayed at with sam when she won that writing award), and also one of their last shows at the khyber in philly (ted leo was on guitar, which was awesome). gates recently played a show up here in brooklyn at union pool, which was unsettling for me since i found out about it a day late, and also didn't know (a) rebecca gates lives in brooklyn, and (b) that she still played out.

nobody ever went with me to the spinanes shows, which only reaffirms my sense that nobody really knew who they were or gave a shit (though freewilliamsburg posted a video here, so someone else must be into them), but they were one of my favorite bands at the time and i still put their songs on mixtapes to this day. i still tell people about the time i saw sebadoh play at Yale, me and jason lowenstein had the same spinanes t-shirt on. i found rebecca gates on myspace and attempted to add her as a friend. even though my current picture is a photo of my crotch, though fully clothed, i'm hoping she accepts me. i've been checking about every hour on the hour and i'm actually fearing rejection, which might be the most crushing blow i've experienced via the Internet, with certain exceptions made for particular girls from LA (though i then called them up and at least made them vocally repeat what they typed to me, i guess in an effort to solidify my rejection).

my second, equally ridiculous, crush at the moment is Jena Malone, who you probably remember from Donnie Darko, Saved, The Secret Life of Altar Boys, and other films of well-appreciated critical accomplishment. this one i feel really creepy about, because i once had a similar sort of thing for Natalie Portman after i saw Beautiful Girls. not really in a purely-sexual sense either (although i will categorically deny ever having sexual feelings for natalie portman in that movie, i still feel especially creepy since i've been reading a lot of Peter Sotos lately), but more this desperate old-man feeling of admiration toward some precocious old-soul, perhaps in some subconscious attempt to thwart age, or the immaturity of one's own past. anyhow, without any real, personal information to back this claim up, Jena Malone seems like a pretty rad person. i think i started getting crushed out on her after the INDEX (see above pic) interview came out a few years ago, which is really strange to me since i rarely ever have a thing for famous, or semi-famous people, but with certain individuals, under specific parameters, i think it's okay. just to give this a current, newsworthy hook, she's playing guitar at the mercury lounge on tuesday. i'm thinking about going and asking her out on a date.