OK I have an Aleks *problem*. No one reads this any more, so I feel strangely free to disengorge it here. At home I listen to Battleship records, which are so good I listen with throat adrenalined shut and my heart at a kinda troubling gallop. Battleship are fucking devastating, only fucking MASTODON are as much so, MASTODON, all right? All right, so, permanent heavy rotation for me, the Battleship, daily, and the physical reaction and the awe, OK, that go along with that listening. They're one of the very best bands I've ever heard, and I've heard a whole lot of bands, man - and about 90% of Battleship's magnificence is Aleks. As far as I'm concerned he doesn't have much of anyone to look up to, frontman-wise. While listening I frequently view one or several of the unscanty number of photographs of Aleks I've downloaded to my desktop, some of which have been posted here. But I WORK with the son of a bitch. It's horrid. This extravagant, shaky-handed fandom goes on in my leisure time and then I go to work and he's FUCKING THERE, saying "What's happenin' Jennifer", in his peerless voice, in his perfect jeans, all normal and non-rock star. Just this guy I work with. But it's THIS GUY:

I mean, the fucking girls who were obsessed with David Cassidy didn't have to fucking punch a time clock with him. Good grief.

And what I'm saying, Los Blue Eyes, is that once you've totally lost track of your number of gay experiences you may no longer claim to be "not gay enough" to be in a band called Cockfight. Who's with me here? Every last soul, yeah?

Lee doesn't get enough shoutouts here on Owls!. ("Shoutowls"? No, I couldn't possibly.) But here's one now. I value you, Lee, not just because you're my favorite drug buddy but because you're important enough to me that when I listen to bands you particularly disdain me for appreciating, I say aloud "In your FACE, asshole!" - to you, when you're nowhere near. And that is a special kind of love, I feel.

(It happened just now, as I listened to that one really good Fallout Boy single - no shut up there *is* one, the one I probably only like because the chorus has several ambiguous references to "cock"ing things and "goin' down, down".)