When I say talking, I also mean writing, sharing, seeing shows, really anything you can do in the company of others with music. Don‰’t get me wrong, I still enjoy the art as much as ever, but the culture surrounding it is largely counterproductive bullshit.

I‰’m sick of wracking my brain week after week, squeezing adjective after adjective. I feel pretentious in an impotent way. I know no one‰’s foaming at the mouth in anticipation of next week‰’s column, but I still have to labor on under that delusion. In the end, I have a daunting wall of text whose entire mission would be better served if the reader would just listen to 30 seconds of whatever I‰’m rambling on about.

I don‰’t even think there‰’s much left for me to be putting down on the page, most of my passions are somewhere in this column‰’s archive.

Shows are starting to suck, too. There are still the life changing ones where I wake up sore as shit, ears ringing, and feeling mildly depressed from the dopamine receptor burnout. Maybe I‰’m just jaded, but shows increasingly feel like a slog through a crowd too afraid of spilling their shitty $8 beer to move and too preoccupied with other mundane socializing to shut up. Then I have to careen my head around a sea of cell phones anytime a band member deviates even slightly from the expected performance norms.

Playing DJ at parties is both the most convenient way to let others hear whatever limp noodle reverb band you‰’ve been reblogging all week and it‰’s also the most certain way to ensure that no one will pay it a half second of attention.

It feels like an endless circle of everyone waiting their turn to talk to a crowd that is too excited to reveal their own great taste to listen. It‰’s like a circle jerk of exhibitionists all getting off on the delusion that everyone else is getting off to them.

I‰’m sick of your best new musics, your top ten influential albums statuses, your definitive guides to CMJ, and I‰’d only hope that you feel the same way about me.