(Our writer DGR has been playing catch-up on records released earlier this year when other distractions interfered with writing about them. Beginning in mid-July he has delivered three Issues (which you can find here, here, and here), and now we have Issue Four bringing together extensive reviews of four more records released in preceding months.)

I don’t mind the heat too much, I’ve found that I’m still fairly operable as an individual until we reach 110 or so, which thankfully doesn’t happen too often. I get excessively grumpy when there’s humidity involved, which again, isn’t too crazy in my corner of California. Enough trips to the East Coast and the humidity there has at least pulled back the curtain a bit for me on why so many people involved in politics seems like a fucking angry moron. That sort of heat+humidity combo can rot the brain of anyone, and when you have so little to begin with, one trip to our nation’s beloved capital and you come back barely functioning. It’s why the size comparisons when people start complaining about heat make me chuckle, because there’s a different sort of suffering attached to each conception of ‘hot’, and truly, I will always feel like a soft child just barely toughing through them all as it is.

What I do hate is actually the first week of consistent heatwave wherein I have to come to terms with the fact that I’m going to have the AC unit and a fan in my room running constantly. The noise itself is enough if you’re a tender sleeper – I’m not – but what gets me is if I forget to tell the fan to stop moving back and forth, otherwise as I’m sleeping it feels like someone gently brushing across my face whispering ‘hey, heeeeeey, hey, you trying to sleep? Not today fucker’. So even for as much bragging of being able to survive on the surface of the sun, I’m still a grumpy fool.

That said, I much prefer the cold. I feel like the margin of error has an easier curve there. I can always put on more clothes, I cannot get more naked.

I do have a few more of these features to finish and I can’t make the visits to my local coffee shop with my laptop any more awkward than they are already. Continue reading »