Compared with other jobs (Portosan emptier, Courtney Love’s lawyer), my gig at Spin must look easy, but nobody hears about the hard times.Like dealing with ectomorphic supermodels who refuse to take a photo with me (I’m talking about you, Kate Moss, you pretty bitch) or has-been rock stars (hello, Vince Neil!) who won’t talk to me and still carry on like it’s 1986. (If it were 1986, I’d be, like, six, and totally not into you anyway, you fat bitch.) Happily, there are people such as pixieish singer/songwriter Ben Kweller who do appreciate the perks of a superficial relationship with a rock mag.

 

Compared with other jobs (Portosan emptier, Courtney Love's lawyer), my gig at Spin must look easy, but nobody hears about the hard times.Like dealing with ectomorphic supermodels who refuse to take a photo with me (I'm talking about you, Kate Moss, you pretty bitch) or has-been rock stars (hello, Vince Neil!) who won't talk to me and still carry on like it's 1986. (If it were 1986, I'd be, like, six, and totally not into you anyway, you fat bitch.) Happily, there are people such as pixieish singer/songwriter Ben Kweller who do appreciate the perks of a superficial relationship with a rock mag.

Kweller invited me to watch him perform on Fuse's IMX show. Before he went on, we hung out watching videos and marveling at how all the emo bands look exactly the same."I don't even know what emo is," Kweller mused. "It means, like, emotional, right?" I explained that there are also subgenres called extremo and screamo. "Oh! I'd be Elmo!" he said. Later, as he played songs off his new album, On My Way, I thought of all the other great Bens--Ben Franklin, Uncle Ben, Ben from Ben & Jerry--and wondered what it would've been like if they were all in Kweller's supergroup, the Bens, that he formed with Ben Folds and Ben Lee. Maybe they'd be huge stars and my Spin rock mum (that motherly bitch!) wouldn't keep referring to Kweller as my "fallback" item.