i am taking a few classes at nku for art. i start monday. it’s been a long time since i’ve been in school, really in school. before we first had label interest i did two years at miami middletown, then post-deal i took correspondence class while we were on the road a lot. then i took a few classes here and there during a lull in lexington. so that’s my college history. i love college; i love learning. i wish i could have done all four years the first time around but it did but music did not allow it. but i think the timing is finally right to really get into it and keep working toward a degree and seek personal fulfillment and expand my overall knowledge of the world. if i do it now i can sort of blend in with the students. i won’t be like some weird out of touch old dude with a mustache.

except that i am growing a mustache to celebrate going back to school. it’s a “back to school mustache” and i will don it for as much of the semester as possible. when i look in the mirror i’ll see a mustache and be reminded that i am a college student. that will feel good. and when other people see it, they’ll think i’m a porn star OR on the cutting edge of a facial fashion trend that is a bound to return after decades of hiatus. i have asked nearly everyone i know very politely to consider growing a mustache with me, but i am getting a lot of blank stares. my dad always had a mustache, and i’m seeing them pop up here and there on some of my favorite rock bands. really cool people wear mustaches. thus the mustache is cool. this is how coolness works, it isn’t passed down from god, it’s totally random. it just rubs off like pollen from a flower. if you’re still not on-board, let me now tell you a story that may sway you.

tonight after load-in but before the show we went to a place called “Adobe Gila’s”. we were just walking along a street and there was a giant gila monster atop the awning of a building. as if we needed more convincing they also had a patio and americanized mexican food. so we sat outside on a brightly colored picnic table. i tried to order a frozen drink in a glass shaped like a girl in a bikini (you get to keep the glass), but the waitress misunderstood me and brought it to me a regular cup. i didn’t even want to drink i just wanted the bikini glass. but i imagined the conversation “hey i thought i was going to get the glass shaped like the girl in a bikini?” and looked at t and dan and it sounded really ridiculous so i let it go. then we were finishing our food and the server brings me a shot of whiskey saying “this is from a really hot girl”. then she gave me knowing look and walked off. what a bar moment. when she came back i said “aren’t you going to tell me who it was from?” and all she could say was “not me” and again with the sort of sexy mysterious look. then when the bill comes out, none of my food is on it. so it must have been somebody working behind the bar but they chose to remain anonymous.

that kind of thing just doesn’t happen to me, ever. it happens maybe to abercrombie models or guys who look like abercrombie models but not to me. but it happened last night and i know exactly why: the back to school mustache. this is only the beginning of my transformation. i imagine as it grows in thicker and longer i will become even more irresistible and eventually may have to stop doing shows and going to bars altogether because of all the free drinks from girls. have you had enough of this topic?

back to gila monsters. if you know only one thing about the gila monster (as i do) then you know only that it hibernates in the winter living of the fat it stores in its fat tail. and they look cool. that is two things now that we know. on the menu it says “save the gila monster” but there is no mention of how or why to do this, nor any promise that a portion of the proceeds go to saving them or whatever. it’s just a thing to say i guess, an awareness fashion statement. but if there were an actual gila monster in need of saving, say from quicksand or something, i would reach right in and get him out.

we walked back out under the giant gila monster then to visit some friends of our friend randy and sit outside at another restaurant patio by a fire longing for marshmallows and then back to the club. we played at the basement, which i don’t like as much as the stage upstairs at house of crave but it was still nice. we played a relatively solid set and opened with telescope eyes. i think that may be the new opening song. i think it’s a little more subtle than trying to rock out something like “wake up” just to get mellow so again quickly. te is a better setup for the ambient weirdness that is to come. we were between two good bands mercury retrograde and the brink, who did a rousing cover of danzig’s “mother”. probably the best thing i heard all night next to “this is from some really hot girl”

after the show we loaded up the trailer and hung out for a minute. then on the way home brian and i talked a lot about desire and consciousness while t slept.