Oh no! There goes Tokyo! I mean, it's Devo!

Oh, man. Yesterday morning, I received a text message (typical friendly tone: "what's up, what classes are you taking," etc) from Ram --- my first contact from her in perhaps three months. This wouldn't be worth mentioning, except that as a result all last night Ram was in my dreams. In the dreams, I was trying to become more than friends with her again (at one point lying in bed with her), but the presence of some people --- possibly her male housemates, who don't actually exist --- was stopping my plans from coming to fruition.

Well. Clearly, this girl still haunts my thoughts whether I like it or not. Hell, I was dreaming about her back in February while I was still in the throes of dating Spooky. And afterwards, as well. Odd: I formally dated Ram just a single time and we barely kissed, but I guess she made an impact. There's no point in telling her how I feel or trying to start that all up again, though. She made it clear at the beginning of the year that she was not interested in anything of the kind.

***

Anyway. Today at work we said goodbye to three of our older preschoolers, who are heading to kindergarten or first grade. One girl brought pizza and brownies. I put chocolate sauce on the kids' pizza. It tastes better that way when you're four and five.

***

After work, I went and met Friar at the Hangout. We played a little video trivia, then went to an art show in the beatnik neighborhood. One of Friar's bands was hosting a show of pieces based on music from the new album. The lead singer had made an impressive metal mobile as well. Unrelated to the band's show were a lot of smaller ink-and-paper pieces that caught my eye. They had a clean, cartoony style I like. Indeed, I could easily produce drawings just as interested and detailed --- and have, while doodling in my notebooks and so on. I'm not denigrating the pieces, which were of high quality and carefully presented. Instead, I'm knocking around the idea of trying to make a few serious pieces in this style myself. Yes, when you work and go to school, it's not easy to make time for creative pursuits as well (which is why so many artists live in poverty), but that's just an excuse. There's always an excuse for everything you want to do but don't.

After a while at the art show, we went up to the venue where I last saw Auric on his solo tour. A band that the Friar is trying to sign up was playing. But instead of staying there, we headed out to Fair Park, an outdoor arena where Devo was playing. The Friar had scored a ticket from one of his many contacts. He generously bought me a ticket, over my objections, and then went up front to get me a better class of ticket. Actually, he just borrowed a friend's stub, but that was enough to get me down to the close seats. Yes, it's slightly dishonest, but those drinks weren't cheap, my friends! We arrived just as the opening act, the Psychedelic Furs, were finishing up.

And then Devo played. I'm no big fan --- I recognized perhaps their four greatest hits --- but they were loud and energetic and Mark Mothersbaugh was in terrific voice.

After that, Friar and I went back to the Hangout, where we played video golf and talked about this and that. Some awful amateur funk band was playing. It's difficult to say which was worse: their tuneless, uninspiring originals, or the covers they butchered unmercifully. I was appalled at what they did to Sheryl Crow's "All I Wanna Do," let alone the classics they attacked. In addition to their rock singer guy, they had a genuine black guy doing a sort of reggae-tinted, growling rap/chant and dancing, but unfortunately he wasn't good at either. They thought they were tearing the roof off the sucker, but they were actually attaching the roof even more firmly to the sucker. Yes, the next band will have to try doubly hard to tear the roof off; these guys clamped it on with metaphorical nails of suck.

I'm out.