Ten Musings For Thursday

Dopey, google-eyed white supremacist Dylann Roof was found guilty today after unloading 70 rounds into a room full of churchgoers at a Bible study last year, killing nine. Good. Fuck him.Spotify tells me that I listened to Alcest more than any other artist this year. That sounds about right. Apparently I also listened to shit-tons of Rammstein, though I would have though I listened to more Metallica in 2016. I guess it was a Rammstein kind of year.I finally broke down and bought reading glasses two months ago. I have worn them twice. Stunning how sharply they improve my vision. Almost as stunning as how rarely I wear them.I'm going to see Metallica tonight at the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles. When I was in junior high school, the Rolling Stones played a tiny dive bar in my hometown called Sir Morgan's Cove (that's the name of the club, not my hometown. Although how sweet would it be to hail from Sir Morgan's Cove?). A girl I know somehow ended up with Mick's bandana, even though she never made it into the club. I think we were thirteen at the time. Anyway, it remains one of the Stones' legendary shows and I'm thinking that tonight might be along those lines for Metallica. I can't wait.I've been asked to come up with the ten best bands in a couple of major US cities. Lists are the joy and the bane of every music journalist. I make them all the time and they fill me with the sort of anxiety and regret I usually get when impulsively dropping a big chunk of change on the roulette wheel.I wonder whatever happened to that stewardess I wrote about earlier this year who stole all the tiny booze bottles from her plane and sold them on the black market to the local boozers.A few months ago, a cop pulled me over for speeding. I'm fighting the ticket and have a trial date in January. If that's not a barn-burning way to start 2017, I don't know what is. I think I'm going to start ominously referring to "my upcoming trial" at holiday parties.I finally signed up for a class at the Leica Akademie (that's German for "Academy") in January. It will be interesting to see what the other 95% of my camera can do.Speaking of, my Instagram feed is weird. I'll do five serious photography shots in a row, and then one of me crushing somebody's head. Immediately after the latter types, I lose three or four followers. I picture these very serious photographer types devolving into a table-pounding rage when they realize they're following just some goofy-looking dude who takes selfies at hockey games and whatnot, and hitting the "Unfollow" button so hard, their very serious photographer thumb bruises. You can't please everybody.Driving to Los Angeles is going to blow, but now that there's a chance of rain, it's going to be a thousand times worse. At even the faintest hint of rain, people in California begin driving as if the highway is covered with kittens.