As some of you know, I’ve been writing record reviews for HeaveMedia.com.

We’ve recently relaunched the entire site. There’s a host of brand new reviews, wonderful cultural content, HIGH-DEFINITION VODCASTS, and even an mp3 player at the top right where you can listen to sample songs from a lot of our most recent reviews.

If you want to check out specifically what I’ve written, you should look into the reviews of Girl Talk, Wolf Parade, and The Notwist. There will soon be a piece on the new album from The Hold Steady as well.

http://www.heavemedia.com

We look forward to hearing anything you’ve got to say. We’d love to tailor our content to what our readers tell us they want. If we should have reviewed something and we haven’t, TELL US! If you wish we weren’t so snobby, TELL US! If you think we should drink less coffee, TOO BAD!

But seriously, take a gander. We’re quite proud of the site so click on through and happy listening!

most of this happened. let me know what you think.

She asks if I will drive and that is where it starts. It is her car – I don’t even own one – and two and a half hours is not an unbearable stint for anyone her age. Her glasses, much like mine, are faintly hiding an unspeakable wish. I run my hands through her shorn-short hair, kiss her forehead, and calmly say, “Of course. Get in.”

It takes us only two hours of filling the stale air of the car with babble about bands we love before we’re greeted, hesitantly, by my parents. She acts polite, pushing the fish my mother has reheated for us around the plate rather than to come out and inform her that she hasn’t eaten anything that ever had parents in five years.

Later, there is the usual shuffling for drinks made quietly while the rest of the house sleeps. I lead the way upstairs and am sure to lock the door to my bedroom, unchanged since I’d moved away, to avoid unwanted peering from eyes that know all too well what is going on here.

The days are cold and biting and we drive into the city every morning, inevitably missing the trains we plan for. We go down my favorite roads, to my favorite bookstores, my favorite bars, all the usuals, and it feels unimpressive. She’s polite, but I’ve prepared for this with the expected flaw of everything I do: I expect it to be perfect.

The vodka sours I’m making nightly don’t taste right, my friends are abrasive, the sun is lying about warmth each day.

I’m approaching an intersection on Michigan Avenue. The light is yellow and I fly through while hunting for a very specific song to play. Three blocks later I find it and the grooves on the volume dial feel like they are screaming to be spun.

She listens and smiles. Comments about how it’s the right length and the right amount of worry in his voice – we speak in hypothetical, nonlinear languages and it is far too natural.

Her favorite line is the one about Elliot Smith. Mine is about the girl with the AK-47. It’s the beginning of an ending that has always been approaching.

I shove the accelerator down harder and we race to a finish line that neither of us can see. We both only know it has something to do with how fast and deep the sun is setting in the November sky.

Frequenters of this blog will notice some pretty significant changes.  Mainly, the elimination of one half of the content.

I wish there were a better way to say, “We had creative differences.”  Unfortunately, that’s what it was.

Fortunately, this blog is still about communicating.  Across mass distances.  Across zeros and ones.  When they don’t work out.  When they do.  Trying to make the digital the analog.  Trying to communicate accurately in a crazy time.

It’s a hard time, this whole “great changes” thing.  Fortunately, I have a really good friend who – despite the majority of his interests revolving around candy, video games, and Batman – gives me really great advice sometimes.

“Hey man.  You’re just in the trash compactor.  From Episode IV.  [he is referencing Star Wars: A New Hope]  Yeah, you thought you were in the clear, so you dove in headfirst.  Now there’s some walls closing in and a Dianoga wrapped around your leg [I kid you not, he knows the name of this creature] , and your wookie is howling.  Don’t worry though.  C-3PO and R2-D2 are out there.  They’re coming.  It might be 3 months.  It might be more, it might be less.  But they’re just busy with some Stormtroopers right now.”

Thanks, Jay.