I was angry during our Paragon set for reasons I won’t even revisit. A musical set is an emotional eye-blink, and my mood tends to freeze into whatever emotional state I happen to be in when we drop the first chord.

Whenever I get pissed off I take it out on my gear and on myself. As I plugged in my patch cords I could feel the blood heating up in my arteries. The show was a whirlwind and by the end of the set I was bleeding from my fingers and from my forehead, and my forearm was covered with bruises, and it felt like something was fucked up in my wrist.

I headbutted a microphone and it fell forward and I followed it down onto the dancefloor, lying on my side like a wounded primordial snail, abusing my instrument and shouting backing vocals into the horizontal mic.

Afterwards I craved sedation but all Pinky had for cough syrup in his apartment was a couple swigs of alcohol-free Buckley’s.