As I stood among the crowd of 40 or so patrons gathered to watch the Canadian band Women at The Casbah the other night, I began nodding my head and ever-so-slightly moving my feet to their intricate guitar patterns.

For those of you unfamiliar with the work and public persona of Electrical Audio studio owner / operator Steve Albini, here’s a quick primer:

Playwright and author George Bernard Shaw was once quoted as saying, “Youth is wasted on the young.” What he meant, of course, is that the naïve and inexperienced aren’t able to properly cherish the time in their lives when everything is new and exciting and the world is seemingly at their fingertips.

When people use “rock ’n’ roll” as an adjective, it often seems as though they’re expressing their own desire to act like complete assholes and get away with it.

Once upon a time, before Facebook took a firm grip over the hearts, minds and egos of the world’s social networkers, there was a little thing called MySpace.

Purging possessions is one of my favorite activities. I don’t own much—mostly clothes, books, music and movies—but if it’s not getting use, it has to go. The process rejuvenates me and serves as a reminder that I don’t really need any of this stuff.

I found myself at a multimedia art show at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego’s La Jolla location about a month ago, spending much of my time wondering how I ended up there in the first place. Let’s just say my reaction to the sort of social hobnobbing I tend to observe at these kinds of things is not very positive, to say the least. I guess it’s just not my crowd.

People consume cultural products for pleasure. Music, films, television, literature, visual art, video games— these things wouldn’t exist if their goal weren’t to provide us with a heightened sense of joy or a greater appreciation for life. That said, I find the concept of the “guilty pleasure” to be one the most trite, annoying and unforgivable clichés in our cultural lexicon.

Listening to an interview with Devo’s Gerald Casale on American Public Media’s Marketplace radio show the other day, I couldn’t help but be reminded of how prophetic a vision the band once had—that humans had passed the point of any real progression and are in a constant state of “de-evolution,” despite any technological, social or scientific advancements that may seem like evidence to the contrary.