Top Ten: Rosendale

1. Cough syrup on the bed with Jacinta. Yes that's right, after 9 days of coughing and voice loss, I finally got me some cough syrup. Go ahead and yell at me, K Punk, but the experience of drinking cough syrup while lying on a comfy bed int he middle of the woods in upstate new york really could not be beat.

2. The young New Moon subscriber who came up to me after my talk and told me about this, her favorite magazine, which has no ads. She also admitted that she subscribed to another magazine, American Girl, but that it was kinda boring now and she might cancel it. How do these kids get so smart?

3. The entire town of Rosendale, who came out to my talk. Seriously. This was so awesome.

4. The intense discussion of the incredibly weird book Punk House we had over breakfast with CJ, Michael, and Jacinta. A $25 book documenting our dirtiest friend's houses? Made extra weird by Jacinta and Micahel's accidently inclusion in the thing? I mean, it's weird enough that the book is looking, in a fairly removed way, at only a certain variety of punk house, right? And then that there is no discussion of this from within the economic system within which we are forced to live, and this in fact is fetishized and sold under quite a high price tag, but even that does not describe the utter fucking weirdness of a full-color book documenting filth. If this sells, I will cry.

5. Sarah Burt of No_Space. She is awesome, the space is great, they had a neat show up while I was there, and everyone in town seems really supportive of this thing that, in a small town, could be considered kinda fringe. How does she do it? Friendliness, maybe, and enthusiasm. It's amazing.

6. Walnut Street House. Jacinta and Micheal's house is in the middle of some woods that have humungous rocks next too them, and you feel a bit like you might have stumbled into a fairy land, except everything is just big enough for you.

7. Rosendale Cafe. They stayed open to make us food, and for that they deserve some love. That the food was really good, and that they were really nice, does not hurt either.

8. Developing a strategy for dealing more effectively with manarchy. Anarchist boys get me down sometimes. Jacinta too. How nice to be able to talk it through with someone!

9. Pulling into town last minute, no makeup, no voice, no idea what I'm doing in Rosendale, and giving a talk five minutes later that is great and fun and well-received and seems unaffected by my potential smell and utter lack of hairstyle.

10. Hmmm. This is a tough one. Because the truth is, that it was the last stop on the best tour I've ever done, which was totally amazing and inspiring in everyway. But by the end of any tour, you do start to wonder why people want to hear you talk about this thing you've been talking about for 11 straight days without stopping and you even bore yourself. So: I am sorry it had to end, but glad, really that it did.