I did not come to the Hudson Bay Café tonight intending to launch into a brief misanthropic rant. My intention was to read some Don Quixote, but the endless vacuous blather of the college girls at the next table has made that impossible. Yes, I could move to another table, but I’m in the cherry spot of the café and loath to give it up. Instead I’ve been trying to make their heads explode with my mind powers, so far without success.

How can they talk so goddamn much? This always amazes me. I am a man of few words, by nature and by choice. I’ve never quite understood how people can generate a nonstop stream of chatter that goes on for hours. Sometimes I envy them; fewer awkward silences. But at the moment I am filled with loathing. Could just be a case of the Mondays.

The best song on this subject is John Cale’s “Rosegarden Funeral of Sores” (also excellently covered by Bauhaus), which begins thusly:

Virgin Mary was tired
So tired
Tired of listening to gossip
Gossip and complaints…
They came from next door.

It gets uglier from there, culminating with a line about the “parasitic scream of whores.” Cale’s words are far stronger than any I would choose, but once in a while I understand where he’s coming from.

Glad to have gotten that off my chest. Expect positive and life-affirming content to resume tomorrow.