"Words are very unnecessary/They can only do harm."

The Song: "Enjoy the Silence," Depeche Mode. Words & music by Martin L. Gore. Track 6 of Violator, 1990.
When/how acquired: I have no idea. It's in my iTunes; I suspect I borrowed it from a housemate, sometime around 1995.
Listen/watch here.

Violator is one of those albums that everyone of a certain age and worldview owns, or should. It's telling that I have absolutely no idea how or when I acquired it. I just have it, as if it magically appeared in my music collection because it knew it needed to be there.

On a semi-related subject, I recently saw a list of people's greatest regrets at the end of their lives. It was touching and much what you'd expect: spent too much time at work, didn't take enough risks, didn't give themselves credit for being the person they were. To that list I would add: I didn't spend enough time at gay discos. Seriously, I didn't. I didn't spend enough time dancing in a safe place when I was the right age and body shape to do that. If I had it to do over, I've have gone dancing a LOT more. A lot.

I digress. Today's song was an obvious choice, especially after my client and friend John Connolly played it on his Internet radio show ABC to XTC this morning. It had been in my head since yesterday afternoon, when I made the mistake of watching Rep. Weiner's press conference. Congressman Weiner's press conference was one of the weirdest pieces of Washington theater I've ever seen, and I watched the Whitewater hearings pretty much gavel-to-gavel (I was recovering from back surgery, flipping between C-SPAN and "Animaniacs").

The first moral of yesterday's squirmfest was, don't be late to your own press conference.

The second, and most important, is Image Management 101: stop talking as soon as possible. State your message and get off the stage. Answer as few questions as possible. Do not solicit additional questions. Really, just stop talking after you've said what you had to say.

Rep. Weiner's initial statement was fine, if painful. (And Chris, credit where credit is due: you were right, about all of it.) I'm glad he didn't put his wife through the humiliation of joining him on the platform. All the humiliation was his, and I feel certain that was the source of the tears, not any true repentance — although I shouldn't say that, because who knows? Once he started taking questions, though, he slashed himself back open and legitimized further speculation. Idiotic, and enough to make any self-respecting press secretary quit. (I fully expect to see an announcement of that resignation before the end of the week.)

Today is the publication date of INK FLAMINGOS, the fourth and probably final installment in the Tattoo Shop Mysteries by my dear friend Karen E. Olson. INK FLAMINGOS is not only a solid, entertaining thriller (with a really nice edgy romance folded in), but also has the distinction of being the very first book ever dedicated to me. Yes, really. I may need to go buy ten copies today just to prove it to my family.