3:03 a.m. // 23 April 2004

Dwayne indulged me by staying up late to go see Stereo Total. It is multilingual stripped-down French pop. I think only Europeans could pull it off, something so fun and dancy and funny. There is just a guy and a girl and programmed beats and keyboards and heart-shaped guitar and a rectangular guitar and some cymbals and a tambourine and a snare drum.

They had some technical difficulties; this was the second time in six days that Dwayne and I have seen a malfunctioning keyboard hurled against the wall (well, technically, Jeff punted his). But they dodged what would have been an ordeal for a too-serious band by keeping their wit and dance moves about them.

The past two weeks have been, for me, a series of exercises emphasizing that so long as you play with energy and a sense of humor, it doesn't matter how badly you play. On Saturday , Jackson 8 played its best show at Rubber Gloves in the history of Jackson 8 at Rubber Gloves. Probably because we had a dry run (not so dry run) Tuesday when I got all mopey.

One of the Chrises from Kobra III said the other two guys in the band don't fully understand the way that a show can be bad but good at the same time. Books!!! played an awesome!!! show, warts and all. Shouting and scowling at the audience and each other. Spitting beer onto the audience. Jeff wandering with his bass all the way across the room. The audience spitting beer onto Josh. Christina's beer exploding like Old Faithful made out of Shiner, and people slippin' and dancin' in the ensuing puddle.

00:40 of Hell blew everyone away, by the way. The jackson8 took them to Waffle House afterwards, even though it appears to be 5,000,000,000,000 miles away and they really secretly yearned for Whataburger. They crashed at our house for four and a half hours before returning to the Great Dusty North. Dwayne and I woke up to see them off at 8:30 or whatever ass o'clock. Then we went back to bed and somehow slept until just after 2 p.m., when Dwayne was supposed to be meeting the Hedwig folks at mable's. (Oh, and incidentally, 00:40 walked away from Rubber Gloves with $[insert sexy number here].)

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