(diaryland) October 25, 2001 - 11:44 a.m.

I was on Brunswick Street with Michele and we went past the Evelyn Hotel. We looked in the window and there was this rad band doing a soundcheck. They sounded really together and unusual. I thought, �Wow. These guys are going to get big some day.�

There was a guy writing the name of the band on the blackboard outside the hotel, and we asked him about the band. He said that the drummer was �the tenth best drummer in the world�.

How can you be the tenth best drummer in the world? It�s not like athletics. People don�t look at runners and say, �Hey. I don�t really like the way his face flaps around when he�s sprinting, so he�s only the twelfth best runner in the world.� They don�t do that. Sport is like this thing where the way you be the best is to be the fastest, or the strongest, or whatever. No matter how you do it, if you get there, you�re sweet. Taste isn�t an issue that comes into it.

Music, obviously, is a different thing. It�s all about taste. It�s totally taste. Music is a place where your favourite band could be the Shaggs, and they couldn�t play their way out of a paper bag. So how can you have a tenth best drummer in the world? You could have your personal tenth favourite drummer, but it will be different to someone else�s.

The guy went on to say that once, when the famed tenth best drummer in the world went to a concert performed by the second best drummer in the world, the second best drummer in the world spotted him in the audience and asked him to come up and play a solo. WOW! The second best drummer in the world loves him! Exciting! Gee.

And if this drummer is so reasonably good, then why is he playing in a tiny hotel?

Anyways, I thought I was the tenth best drummer in the world.