I'd like to have an intervention for my brother about his video game playing. Unfortunately, all of his (few) friends are video game players, as hard core at it as he is. (He plays about six hours a day, if he can be believed.) Thus, the only logical people to hold this intervention would be his family members. There are only three of us here, and he doesn't respect our opinion. I can see it now. My mother goes down to Jeff's room and asks him to come to the living room for a minute. He says, "Why?" She says, "I want your opinion on something." He's not listening because he's playing a computer game, so she repeats it and he says, "Not right now!" She says, "Just come upstairs," and he says, "Did you hear me? Not right now!" This goes on for several minutes, devolving into a screaming match. She comes up and says to me, "The intervention is off."

I'm thinking that to actually have an intervention, we'd need to have my friends to do it. So . . . anyone interested in helping me have an intervention? We can have catering, and cool banners saying "Jeff's Intervention, 2003", and we can rent ponies, and a band (I'm shooting for Modest Mouse), maybe some guest speakers like David Fostor Wallace and Maureen Dowd, get funding for television and radio commercials (Jeff Green's action packed intervention is being held at the Patriot Center Arena this Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!) and broadcast the event to a significant portion of the country (say, 35% of the population, seeing as Congress will likely revise the FCC ruling . . .), and we can all go out for ice cream afterwards. Who's with me?

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Screw you guys.

The New York Times, I am beginning to discover, are decently awesome indie rock critics. Their Arts page has album review on Tuesdays (which makes sense, seeing as albums, for some unknown reason which I am sure relates to the international Jewish conspiracy, always come out on . . . Tuesday); they almost always review indie albums. Last week it was The Thrills, The Sleepy Jackson, and Super Furry Animals. They also reviewed the Siren music festival and commented on the bands' tendency to imitate previous genres (Datsuns=slick seventies metal; The Kills=blues rock); then it mentioned how Modest Mouse was the anamoly, "an old-fashioned indie-rock band from the days before all the new bands wanted to sound like old bands."

Pardon me while I quote something beautiful.

"For better and for worse Isaac Brock is a front man who seems to live in a world of his own invention, a place where folk music means grinding dissonance and off-kilter riffs and sudden musical shifts and shouted rants . . .. (H)is best songs can make you feel as if you're peering into a vast, weird world full of warped parables and cryptic observations.

"While the other acts wanted to inspire a dance party, it seemed Mr. Brock wanted to inspire a mass delusion. . .."

It is 4:48 am. This is important, so I'm stating it even though it will be in the dateline, because I don't pay much attention to blog datelines. Anyway, I've just come inside from smoking a cigarette. I think my neighbors, the Koenigs, might be massacring several teenage girls; it seems that they've installed a series of timed strobe lights, blue and white, to flash at seemingly random intervals, in order to provide a suitable setting while they terrorize and attack these teenage girls. Either that or (and I find this unlikely) they're watching a horror movie. I'm thinking maybe I should call the cops.

Anyway, Anne and Martin, you missed a beautiful show. You shouldn't have let the rain scare you off. The D-Plan rocked the fort tonight after the rain tapered off. Travis came on at about 7:20 and told us they were waiting it out, and would play if the weather lightened up to a drizzle. He thanked The Aquarium for being their guinea pig, and since that band's keyboard had broken down because of the water, they would wait. "We don't have anything else to do tonight."

I needed cigarettes, so Scott, Andy and I began travelling under one umbrella toward the place Scott recalled seeing a Rite Aid. It ended up being a Whole Foods Mart, only their store appeared to have been swallowed by a parking garage. We went up the three floors, seeing only concrete and cars at each level, and when we reached the third floor with the same result, decided we'd ridden that pony as far as it would go. The rain had let up, but we still went to the CVS next door to purchase my Jades and then ran back to Fort Reno in time to see the band setting up. And then they rocked, and the rocking kept up for the next hour.

"The City", "What Do You Want Me to Say?", "Ice of Boston" (without, unfortunately, a call to go up on stage), and and and "You Are Invited" and more and and then "OK Jokes Over", with covers of Elton John, "Back That Ass Up", and "(Can You Tell Me How to Get to) Sesame Street", and, man, a trombone, and much ass-shaking, and the drummer threw like fifteen sticks into the crowd, and a mother was dancing onstage with her baby, and, shit, man, it was, like, dood, you know, dood. Travis said they'd be playing a club show to make up for the "bullshit" of the nearly rained out event, in about six weeks, so you didn't miss their final show. But man, you should have been there anyway. Man.

Also, Scott, you shouldn't tell me so many things in the bathroom, even if they are "in confidence." Next time I'm going to have to bring a tape recorder. And for god's sake, will you stop touching me.

(Also, I'm approaching the one-week gap in my New York Times. I'm very pleased.)

I have just discovered an open, nearly full bottle of ouzo in my house. It is party time.

"My God, it's from Waldo."
"That shmuck," said Shelia.

Wow. I've changed a lot since February. And I do actually get comments. I just didn't know it because of the magic of YAACS-suck (TM Martin Marks).

After Ottobar, Two If By Sea, supposed to be Earlimart but no Earlimart, got TIBS's singer Chris to give e-mail for basement show at Scott's house . . .

In the antechamber of the Double T Diner at one
And the flourescent light puts out rays just too perfect for truth
People there for a meal, or for takeout, or smokes
In the too-defined light with their stereotypes also defined
Indie-girl with her cigarettes and short yellow hair
And sitting across from her, her Indie-girl boyfriend, of course
And the deadbeats, too tired even before thirty
Still primping their hair with their pitiful post high-school minds
There's a tootsie pop stuffed in the toilet drain
The next guy comes in, it's hard to resist making comments
That he'd see as racist, and I'd see as weak jokes
The goths have their table, and near them the stoner-hat hippies
They're not up to the lost hippie potential
One asks to borrow Scott's guitar, and I'm sure that he thinks
He's too cool and laid-back for words
Aren't I the same way, does it change anything that I know it?
Scott's inhaling, says that he wants to float
I let him and inform, between laughs, when he's ready to ash
The television plays, and it's Leno, then Conan
They're laughing at us, and we're laughing, we're laughing at them
How nice of the waitress to stop by tonight
How you guys doin', can I get you two something to drink?
Just a milkshake, I say for Scott, who's far gone
And I get no coffee, all I want is a fruit salad sundae
We'd forgotten Blue Thunder at my house,
So Scott calls his parents and tells them he's going to be late
For once, amazingly, they take it cool
No need for head-drooping bouts of pity and anger
Except for our dumbness in forgetting the car
Scott floats and coughs, and promises no more for a month
Then the food comes, we eat under too-defined light
And is this a rest, a short break from the driving all night?
Or self-consciousness taken dead on, anxious and a month of Sundays?