although you couldn't kiss me at all

Our interim director just gave me the news: I'm becoming permanent with a modest pay increase.

Which means I'm reaching for the Gary Glitter disc. I got his Rhino greatest-hits package this past weekend, and I am marveling. His best digs deep, rousing cortex shots with Spartan gang-glee and those disembodied riffs. "Hello! Hello! I'm Back Again," "Rock and Roll Part One," "Doing Alright With the Boys," "Always Yours," "Baby Please Don't Go," "Do You Wanna Touch Me? (Oh Yeah!)"; even the heavenly disco of "You Belong to Me" hits hard.

I mean, yes, it is a set of big-bite jokes, but then again, there are guitar parts that have a certain emotionally ambiguous force - you know, the kind I have no ability to fucking describe. But - this is all I got - there's a cinematic grandiosity at the tail end of a lot of his singles, not just a glam-wink. It's like after two minutes or so, Glitter invariably begins worshipping his own altar, and it's pretty heady stuff.

At this instant, Mr. Gadd might be taking a Vietnamese mineral bath before finding out he's no longer the leader of the gang, he am. Hope he gets out all right, hope he gets help.