In the spring of 1992 I was going to Pitt. I drank a lot and had no idea what to do with my life. I was a film major with little to no interest in doing anything in the film industry and was basically miserable in school, in life, in general. That's the really melodramatic view, anyway.

I had joined a band the year before, The Distractions, and it was fun. We got to play at clubs in Pittsburgh, I got to drink underage without incident and act like a rock star. Ha. The key word there being "act".

About the same time the drummer and the guitar player decided to quit the band, I was hanging out with Curt and Barry from the Nixon Clocks. Curt worked over at Graffiti and during that period we played shows with those guys, most notably the Rock Challenge. It's kind of a blur, to be honest, but I think that we actually played against the Nixon Clocks in both 1991 and 1992. They may have even beat us the second year, but I'm not certain. Those things were always fixed anyway, so that little detail isn't important. What really started to occur was that as I started hanging out with those guys I also starting going to their practices and writing stuff with them.

Living in Oakland with no car and practicing with the Distractions in Beaver County on weekends proved to be a real problem. Mostly because I wasn't getting along too well with my parents, and in order for me to be able to come home on weekends to go to these rehearsals, I had to have them pick me up from school, let me use the car while home, abide by their rules, etc... None of which went over very well. So when the band lost its drummer and guitarist, I really thought that was the end of that. I decided to start playing with the Clocks. I figured I could do both. Problem with that was that I don't think I ever really let anyone in the Distractions know my intentions so when they got wind of my other band, I don't think they were too happy. Blame another crisis on my own selfishness and stupidity, a recurring theme of the early 90s.

Anyway, after everything settled and most of my close friends hated me, I was playing full time in the Nixon Clocks. This eventually led to my obsession with making it in the music business and the then later the heart breaking realization that we were destined to fail miserably.

Anyway, as usual, I'm way off the subject. The band at that point was Barry, Mike Nee on drums, Mark Adams on bass and Jeff Sebolt on guitar. After I was in the band for about a month, Jeff got the boot, which can be credited to Barry, who's pissing people off is yet another recurring theme of the early 90s.

The four piece band that you were left with met last night at Moondogs in Blawnox and played together again for the first time in over ten years. Nathan Wilson sat in, too, on "lead bass", whcih was cool. It was a really strage happening, though. Barry was in town for one day on a break from his flight schedule and it just kinda worked out that we all hooked up to grab a drink. Since Nathan hosts an open stage, we wound up over there so we could see him.

We ran through Wrapped, Coming up Close, and Love Vigilantees. Super-odd set, but it was wild to do that again. And today I am hungover.

It's funny because today was only me second day of work and I went in on no sleep and all hungover. My first day of work in San Francsico a little over two years ago was a similar experience. I was hanging out with Barry the night before my first day and we drank and drank and drank until like 3 in the moringin at an Irish bar in downtown SF. So my first impression at work the next day wasn't all that it could be. I also got in some trouble because I invited the busniess manager to come along and he actually ended up calling off sick the next day. So not only am I comong in all wonky on my first day, but I'm causing other staff memebers to not show up at all. Ha.