Either those mall punks slipping me fake IDs and peddling attitude the other night managed to give me my first cold in over a year or my adult-onset allergies to pollen are kicking up today. Either way, it’s slight misery here. So that’s why I’m heading toward the point by point and stealing a line from Thomas Sowell.

Random thoughts on the passing scene…

-That new Pains Of Being Pure At Heart album isn’t  nearly as bad as I’ve heard. I’m as much a late-1980’s purist as anyone but it’s unreasonable to expect them to be as relevant or immediate as bands like Ride or The Field Mice were to those folks coming of age years ago. All things being equal I quite like the new Pains record.

-U2’s No Line On The Horizon deserves more space than I’ll give it here but seeing as how they remain my favorite band of all time I’ll spill a few lines.  I’m no entirely crazy about the main riff on “Get On Your Boots” but, as a whole, the album is pretty good. Lacking mainly in resolute, big-chorus U2-ness No Line On The Horizon is like a blurry photograph of a well known subject.  And the biblical references in “Magnificent” are perfectly handled.

–Vimeo videos tend to look better than those on YouTube and I can’t figure out why.

-My old friend Jen Angel continues to inspire me to no end.  Her tireless work in, and on behalf of, genuinely independent media is a direct influence on my nitpicking habit of calling everything/everyone on the carpet to question its/their motivation, effect and influence.

-I know a lot of folks who caught Echo & the Bunnymen at SXSW this past week. I’d love to see them again after having missed them in Atlanta a few years ago (circa 2002) but will never, ever forget my first Bunnymen show (March 13, 1988). Ian was so drunk he slammed his mic down after 2 songs and stormed off the stage as Will Sergeant tried to tell the crowd Ian was feeling “ill”. The band rescheduled the show and I saw that one, too, but the two song set was particularly impressionable.

-The more I look at over the counter cold medicine the more I wind up buying the same stuff I’ve always bought.

-I am now boring myself.