A few months back, I mentioned the concept of keeping one's personal life out of the club, because customers don't usually fantasize about the girl who's late on rent and has a sick dog. The “leave drama at the door” rule doesn't just apply to dancers, but to DJs, security, and bartenders as well—everyone at the strip club is playing a role, and that role is “smiling tone-setter and money-taker.” I recall an evening when I drove directly from a funeral to my shift at the club, only to be greeted by a late-to-stage, bad-tipping dancer, demanding that I play her Puddle of Staind or whatever was popular in the trailer parks at the time. So, not only did I play it, but I played that garbage loud and pretended that it was actual music. Why? Because people look at the DJ, and if the DJ (or bartender, security, etc.) is having a bad time, then he's letting others know that the whole experience is a ruse (even if it is, we try to make it look like less of one). If you find yourself naked on a stage, the last thing you want to do is remind your audience that you're a real person with real problems. Your name is “Destiny,” and you're here to party (it's not Stephanie, and you're not behind on bills)...

Whoever said that “doing things alone isn’t as entertaining as when you’re with another person” had to have hated their own company, and was mostly incorrect. Doing things alone can be deeply satisfying in a way that otherwise would have been hard to feel when you’re with another person. Do you want someone judging your awful guitar and singing skills? Reading your elf fiction novel you’re trying to finish, so you can one day publish it under a secret pen name? How about telling you something’s not salty enough, when you feel like you put an entire salt shaker’s worth of sodium in the berry pie? My guess is you’ll say “no” to all of these, and that it’s pretty obvious you don’t want someone “enjoying” your secret hobbies you never really get better at...

Since the World Cup is over and likely won by fucking France or Argentina, (I don’t actually know, we’re still in the quarter finals as I’m writing this, but the way it’s fucking going, we’re looking at another Warriors/Cavaliers NBA championship tradeoff, only it’s every four fucking years, so we get to watch the same two teams face off with each other in the World Cup Final twelve-fucking-years in a row…this is not what I’m day-drinking a month straight for—or it’s England which would be rad!) I’ve had to reorient and try to plug back into the local music scene for my column. (Editor’s note: Well, well… The “unmentioned” Spain gets the cup. Exotic suggests you never use Blazer’s column for sports betting purposes…)

Unfortunately, if you haven’t figured it out from my last piece and the little intro to this one, I’ve pretty much used up all my “going out tank,” going to World Cup matches—mostly at Away Days Brewing.

As such, I don’t have much to go on for jabs at the local scene, since I simply haven’t been to any shows.

Instead, I’ll have to draw from my own failures, and dish out some advice from another aging millennial chasing the impossible dream. I’m talking vinyl. The final upgrade to your merch table. Like with everything else in the DIY music world, you can do this yourself. But is it worth it? Should you spend the ungodly amount for what is essentially a vanity plate? I can’t tell you what to do, but I can lay out the pros and cons of this final stage of your delusion...

Junk food. We know it, we love it. In the dead of night or for lunch at work, we all have our favorites. I polled the electorate on various social media sites to ask people what their favorites were. Wild answers unfolded, so I am going to list them; perhaps some are your favorites, too.

Ranked in no particular order, as this is the list of other people's opinions, and not just my own...