The first album I bought for myself was R.E.M.’s Green. I bought it on cassette tape when I was 8 years old, with birthday money, after my friend Jeremy played “Stand” for me. It’s still one of my favorite records of all time, though I usually default to Automatic as my go-to R.E.M. record. Green is 25, which means I am 33, which also means that my cassette copy of Green — I still own it, though it’s warped beyond playing, and I’ve been through 2 CD copies since — is old enough to rent a car without penalties. It’s still a genius record. It sounds really, really good on the new vinyl release, which Rick the Cute Tattooed Bartender played when I was drinking martinis and eating hummus at the Wine Bar last week before my dinner reservation with Gorman. And, you know, it’s not quite R.E.M. without Bill Berry, but I still haven’t seen them, I still don’t have a time machine to go back and see them — I will have to take what I can get, and what I can get right now is that live disc.

Check out this video of “You Are The Everything” from Tourfilm, a documentary about that tour, below, and someone mail me review tickets and a press pass for R.E.M.’s next closest date to the NC, okay? Okay.