Whenever a Smiths track plays on the radio, I am transported back to a bit more than 20 years ago. Thanks for KEXP just now, I was sent down memory lane.
I was struggling hard with an eating disorder at the time and The Smiths albums were very much present on my little pink iPod Mini. One dark winter evening, I decided walk over to the Zellers on Sparks Street to look for a new coffee grinder to replace the $8 blade grinder I had been using.
Between working nights stocking shelves at the city's underperforming-est Wal-Mart outlet (Lincoln Fields), trying really hard (and failing) to ignore the little transsexual in my head, and, uhh, well, constantly reminding myself of the dire consequences of giving into temptation, I plied the aisles of the old, dingy, and dimly-lit outlet in search of a burr grinder that I could afford.
As luck would have it, I did find what I was looking for: a fussy little model for $22. It was impossible to clean, loud, and under-powered, but it was also another in a long line of one-weird-tricks for me to convince myself that I could keep going with better prepared black coffee.
That sure would fix me.
There is no other point to this post: How Soon is Now? reliably, and seemingly forever, brings me right back to a grey, flat, and most entirely disassociated time of life.
I suppose it's a fitting gift from a most miserable and odious prick of a musician.
February 16, 2026