That, and the vocabulary.

So I couldn't sleep last night.


It's cool, don't worry about me.

I've been really kinda stressed lately and having recurring nightmares about my senior prom date making out with Cartel's Nic Hudson right in front of me. (It's a long story, but as it turns out, more people would care if Nic blogged about it.)


Instead of using my insomnia to complete any of the four sections of the magazine I still need to write or taking care of that four-foot high pile of dirty dishes in my sink, I decided the best use of the hours between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. would be to find artwork for any of the 229 albums in my iTunes that could not be located automatically. (Rival Schools' United By Fate? Really? Maybe iTunes should look under "M" for "mandatory to own.")


But sifting through my entire music library while Soul Train was on, I started to take notice of some of the album covers I've got in my iTunes since, after all, I really don't ever see artwork anymore thanks to flipping through my iPod and a tragically short attention span.


So I came up with a couple of awards for some of the most noteworthy covers I stumbled across in the night.


Here we go:



1. Cover That Makes Me Most Think Of That Game Twister:
The Promise Ring, Nothing Feels Good





Twister is a game with a large, plastic mat that repressed teenagers used to play as an excuse to brush up against members of the opposite sex. But MySpace has pretty much taken care of all those old formalities.


2. Cover Most Stolen From The Last Scene Of Fight Club:
Scary Kids Scaring Kids, The City Sleeps In Flames



Seriously. It'd be like if the next Dashboard Confessional album looked like this:



3. Cover That Strangely Depicts What's Going Through My Head At Any Given Moment:
Queens Of The Stone Age, Era Vulgaris


I'm not 100 percent on what this artwork actually means, but one time I had to have my head x-rayed and this picture is actually what was found circulating in my temporal lobe. It was pretty touch and go for a while.


4. Cover That Most Makes Me Feel Funny:
Denali, Denali


[Sighs. Hopes Maura Davis doesn't read his blog. Unless she's flattered. In which case: Gazes confidently yet mysteriously...]


5. Cover Of The Only Vinyl LP I Own:
Brand New, Deja Entendu



True, I was tricked into buying this because I thought it was a super-limited edition version, but if I'm gonna own one album (not by the Monkees), then this is the one I want.

6. Cover That Most Makes Me Feel Like My Masculinity Is Being Questioned: Catherine Wheel, Chrome


Nothing like leotards underwater to make things uncomfortable for everyone involved.


7. Cover With Artwork I Would Hang On My Wall And Pass Off As Legitimate Art: mewithoutYou, Brother, Sister


This would make my apartment look less like (as it's been described before) a 9-year-old with no supervision lives there.


8. Cover With A Photo So Cool I Wish I'd Taken It:
Brand New, The Devil And God Are Raging Inside Me


Yeah, I like Brand New covers. It's creepy as h. But it's also probably my favorite album cover of the past two years. Not counting:



(I don't even want to leave that ambiguous. I'm kidding.)
(Or am I?)
(Yeah.)
(Or am I?)
(Yep.)
(Or am I?)



9. Cover With A Photo I Probably Would Take:
Rob Crow, Living Well


You mean this isn't that picture I took of my Cousin Nathan last July? We were like, "Nathan, yo, it's July. Why the pumpkins outside?" And he was like, "Which July?" And we were like, "The one after June." And he was like, ".........shit."


10. Cover That Most Makes Me Want To Spend The Afternoon Coloring: Sunny Day Real Estate, Diary



I'm sure there's hidden meaning in there, plus this is probably one of my favorite albums ever. But it really kinda makes me wanna buy a box of animal crackers and throw a temper tantrum--I mean different from the temper tantrums I throw at work every other day.


11. Cover That If I Stare At Long Enough, I Get Nauseous:
Samiam, Whatever's Got You Down


Bleh. I gotta sit down. What? Nah, I'm cool.

I also considered:




12. Cover Depicting Everything I've Ever Wanted To Be:
Ryan Adams, Easy Tiger



Sure, it's almost contrived because of how blatantly staged this candid photo is. But I spent 17 Saturdays last year just trying to hold my cigarette like that.
Plus, I'm contrived and I don't really mind.
It's part of my charm.

That, and the vocabulary.

Things I Think I Learned This Week

Look, I'm pretty much done learning things.
I'm passed the point in life where I'm open to new concepts (like understanding Portuguese or folding clean clothes).
Whatever I had in my frontal lobe sometime around March of 2004, that's pretty much what I'm gonna hang onto.
Still, against my own intentions, sometimes the nightwatchman inside my brain falls asleep listening to Death Cab, leaves the gates cracked open and the occasional rogue piece of information sneaks in.
It's a problem.
But here's a little (music and non-music related) of what made it over the border this week:

• Damiera really kinda sound like Michael Jackson now--in a way that makes me so excited that I want to karate chop myself in the spleen. Their first album M(us)ic was sort of a post-proggy batch of songs, but their new album Quiet Mouth, Loud Hands simultaneously evokes Rush, Maroon 5, Coheed, Michael Jackson and, oddly enough, Alien Ant Farm--who really only got famous because they covered a Michael Jackson song. Whether they were going for that or not, it doesn't really matter to me. Apparently, I like music with lots of shit going on.



• Apparently, I like music with lots of shit going on. It's true. I was having a conversation in Scott Heisel's car with our new copy editor Jennifer and Jessica from Roadrunner Records (who stopped by to play us the new Slipknot) and it became clear to me that if you're in a band and you make an album with a symphony orchestra behind you, I'll probably buy it. I own Scorpions' collaboration with the Berlin Philharmonic. Pretty much just me and the mother of the second chair cellist in the Berlin Philharmonic can say that.



• The only time I clean my apartment is when I'm supposed to be writing. Case in point: I was supposed to spend this past weekend working on the second draft of an upcoming cover story. However, all of a sudden, I couldn't go another second without taking apart all of the drainage under my kitchen sink (even though I technically have no idea how to do that) and dusting the top of the ceiling fan in my living room. My place has never been cleaner. If you want your apartment spotless, just have me come over and tell me to write 150 words on the new Alkaline Trio.



• It's entirely possible (yet largely frowned upon) to eat an entire Dairy Queen ice cream cake in two sittings. It takes a delicate combination of hunger and self-loathing.



• You should probably avoid exaggerating quotes from your girlfriend in a blog about driving across the country. As my Uncle Larry always told me: "You know how your aunt and I stay together? Me neither, but I've been drunk since 10 this morning." Here's the thing that'll really mess with your head now: Do you think my Uncle Larry actually said that or am I exaggerating? And if you really wanna blow your mind: Do I even have an Uncle Larry? It's like the end of The Usual Suspects up in here.



• I really, really, really like the Life And Times. And so should you. I kind of knew that before, but I just heard the new album and it makes me hate myself a fraction less because I ate that Dairy Queen cake.



• It's really difficult to end blogs. My preferred method so far is self-referentiality.

I swear, Officer. It was a prairie dog. No, I didn't get a good look at him.

I've hurt you, I know.

As my production director reminded me today, this blog is a now-record 10 days late.
That's the latest I've ever been on anything that didn't result in losing two full letter grades, facing possible tax evasion charges or taking a knee (or on one occasion: a bowling ball) to the crotch.
But I've got a decent reason.


At sort of the last minute last week, I was enlisted by my girlfriend for a drive across the country from Cleveland to L.A.


Considering that up until a year ago, I hadn't been outside of the Eastern time zone, just picking up and taking a four day trip through all the time zones the U.S. has to offer was kind of a big deal. (I never really understood how TV shows in Central or Pacific time zones caught up with TV in Eastern. So Saturday Night Live is on at like 8:30 p.m.? I'm not even sure if that's true, but the whole thing is difficult for me to wrap my head around.)

But the thing is, how often is one afforded the opportunity to drive from (almost) coast to coast for an actual reason? It was like in Dumb And Dumber when Harry and Lloyd used Mary Swanson's lost baggage as an excuse to drive to a place where the beer flows like wine.





So I won't trouble you with any of the minute details of the journey.



Except for these tidbits:


1. I lost our gas cap somewhere between Arizona and Barstow, California. Look, I'm not sure of the physics of the whole thing. All I know is, when I realized it was gone at a gas station, I ran across the street to a used auto parts junkyard, explained that I'd lost my "gas cap thingy circle thing" and the greasy, friendly gentleman pried open the side of a '87 Chevy Celebrity and said, "Does $5 sound reasonable?" And I said, "Sir, I genuinely have no idea."

2. Iowa is the coolest place ever. Who'd of thunk it? Certainly not us. But when we stayed overnight in a little town there, everyone was so insanely nice to us that we decided we would move there if we were to somehow arrive at the mindset that we were, in fact, ready to move to Iowa. So I'm really super-depressed that Iowa is covered in water right now. Seriously. Although, from my experience, I'm sure all the people in the town we stayed at are still very tidy and cordial. 

3. When you're using a GPS navigator and you arrive at your destination--even if it's 37 hours away--there are no fireworks or exciting "Game Over" festivities. After four days of hearing things like, "Turn right in 437 miles" or "Merge left in two days," there's really no climax in store for you. You just cross an imaginary checkered flag and die a little inside.

4. If you hang out at a rest stop in the middle of the desert in Utah, prairie dogs will get in your car and drive away. Keep your keys with you.

Exhibit A:

5. If you play any of the following songs that I love (in case any of you are reading) in the car on a cross-country road trip with my girlfriend, you're going to hear the following (and these are pretty much direct quotes):

• Film School's "Dear Me" - "What happened to you during your childhood that you feel the need to ruin a perfectly sunny day? Where's your medication? Oh, it's not for you."


• DJ Shadow's "Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt" - "So...is this all this song does? No, no. It's cool. I'll spend the next six minutes thinking about products I'd like to purchase."


• Brand New's "Millstone" - "Finally."


• Soundgarden's "Let Me Drown" - "Remember Boy Meets World. I effing love that show."


• Protest The Hero's "Palms Read" - "I swear to God, I will leave you in Arizona with those prairie dogs. I will leave you and I won't look back. You think I'm joking? You better lock your door, kid."

So the moral of this story, other than that gas caps potentially only really cost $1.75, is that if you get the chance to drive across the country, you should take it.

Just don't expect your GPS to be as stoked as you are when you're done.
Still, you'll get to see stuff like this:















And this.

Seems to have caught my leg instead

I'm sick of public transportation.

Not as a concept--mass transit is undoubtedly a very useful and necessary tool in a world where you have to choose between paying for a gallon of gas or a 32-inch 1080 dpi plasma flatscreen. 

I mean I'm personally sick of waiting for assorted subways, trains and buses.

I'm currently writing this from a train somewhere in the northeast. I'm not sure that I'm allowed to be more specific than that because I'm on a top secret assignment, and all you internet savvy super sleuths could probably use context clues to figure out what my clumsy allusions mean.

However, I'm pretty certain that nobody is going to fire me for letting you know that I'm working on a cover story.

For those of you not in my fan club (Note: No such fan club exists in any plane of actual existence), you might recognize that this will be the first time that my byline will be plopped on a cover story. 

It's kind of an exciting process. But it's a ton of pressure, too. 

And I also (and this is not one of my exaggerations, Rachel) forgot to eat for two days. Yesterday, as I was running between my 16th and 17th subway rides, I suddenly realized that I was weaker than usual (and believe you me, I'm just about the sickliest kid ever). 

I assumed I'd likely just gone too long between cigarettes (even though subway platforms are often outside in wide open spaces, they usually don't let you smoke--it's like some cruel psychological torture device for smokers who associate blue skies with Camel Lights).

But when I ran by a train station food court and actually found myself salivating at a salad bar (of all things), I put together the pieces and quickly went next door to the Taco Bell.

Then I felt worse.

But I was more confident that I'd bought myself at least 17 more hours of life.

Okay, sorry that I gotta cut this blog a little shorter than usual, but my stop is coming up and I have to jog a few blocks to the airport. 

For some reason I've been listening to the same mewithoutYou song on repeat for three hours. ("In A Sweater Poorly Knit"--providing me with a semblance of sanity and a title for this blog.)

Talk to you soon, kid.

If you're hungry, eat something. Learn from my mistakes.

Draft autosaved at 7:03 p.m., 7:04 p.m., 7:05 p.m.

Contrary to what my otherwise stream-of-conscious, often rambling (and utterly, utterly self-obsessed) blogs would indicate, I actually suffer from a condition rarely acknowledged by journalists--as it's an affliction that indicates to employers that you are unintentionally securing your spot near the top of the list of writers who will be replaced in three years when Microsoft creates an artificial intelligence program that can generate informative, pop culture-reference-laden copy in the time human writers take just to figure out which font best defines them as a person.

It's the only two word phrase that journalists dread more than "business casual" and "cash bar."

It's called writer's block.

And it's something I've struggled with from the moment I first realized a decade ago that I express myself far more eloquently in print than I do in person. (It's true. It's been repeatedly conveyed to me by everyone from my editor to my girlfriend to my uncle who believes that Larry The Cable Guy is the epitome of all things humor, that I'm nowhere near as witty a human being as I am a voice in a blog.)

So you'd think that I'd have a wealth of material to draw on at any given moment, considering that I can't adequately communicate verbally.

But, nope.

Since I know that a few of you who read this blog are aspiring writers yourself, I figured now was as good a time as any to let you know that it happens to everyone--even those of us who work in the swank AP skyscraper and who have recently developed a preternatural love of Iron Chef America.

Every day for the past five days or so (under the intense badgering of a certain unnamed co-worker), I've started to write a blog for this very website, and each time, I've been halted by a blank screen and a condescending, blinking cursor.

Since this blog site has a fun way of autosaving your drafts at one minute intervals even when no new letters have been added, I decided that I'd share with you my aborted blog intros over the past week. It's in the interest of science, as I hope that one day I can be part of the movement that vanquishes this debilitating illness forever (or until Microsoft unleashes that program and I can quit this charade in favor of a career breeding competitive Peruvian fighting frogs).

MONDAY MAY 26
"Well, today is Memorial Day and I'm spending it the way any red-blooded, god-fearing American would: In my boxers, inexplicably listening to the new Gavin Rossdale solo album and just drunk enough that I'm not filled with self-loathing about it. Yet."

Commentary: The fatal flaw here was that I attempted to blog while in a mildly intoxicated state--which always sounds like a great idea at first (how many times have you and your friends been trashed and began to write the pilot episode for your no-budget YouTube sketch comedy show just to realize six hours later that you've got no ideas on paper but you've played an entire season of Madden?). But writing under the influence, more often than not, leads to the types of over-informative, self-serving MySpace bulletins that say things like, "OMG. I HATE ALL MEN. ESPECIALLY MEN NAMED CHAD." or "I'm going to bed. I realized today that I need to start eating more yogurt. I'll let you know how it goes."

WEDNESDAY MAY 28
"So I realized today that you probably want this blog to be more about music and less about me. But I've got a blog and you don't, so you will listen to every damn word I have to type."

Commentary: A) This blog was starting out on a very belligerent note. B) It was blatantly stolen from a line in Adam Sandler's The Wedding Singer. They teach you in Intro to Journalism courses that as soon as you begin quoting any Adam Sandler movie (especially Little Nicky), it's best to walk away from the computer and possibly throw it out the nearest window.

THURSDAY MAY 29
"I realized today that I need to start eating more yogurt. I'll let you know how it goes."

Commentary: What would be next? A blog that's nothing more than a survey saying how many people in my Top 8 I've kissed? (For the record, that number would be three. If you're one of my MySpace friends, you'd realize why that's way more unsettling than it would seem.)

SATURDAY MAY 31
"All right. I'm out of ideas. What do you people want me to blog about? Wait. Instead of that, maybe I'll just write a blog about how I can't think of anything to blog about. Okay, here we go: Contrary to what my otherwise stream-of-conscious, often rambling (and utterly, utterly self-obsessed)... Wait. Eff this. That's far too self-referential for anyone other than me to find entertaining."

Commentary: My standards have apparently dropped in the past 18 hours. I blame Gavin Rossdale.