One of the best things about the public library is the nerd-calming intimacy of ceiling-high bookshelves. It’s easy to feel calm and invisible amid the stacks, and therefore free to pursue the solitary nerdiness of books in, um, nerdy solitary. It’s a calming opposite of snooty record stores, where insecure dorkwads feel spotlit and browbeaten when, say, searching for a uncensored edition of Brandy’s Afrodisiac or buying a third copy of It’s Complicated.

So, yeah, the public library is actually quite private. Especially the unpoliced expanses of a major city’s main branch. That’s why so many times I’ve whirled around a corner to encounter a uppity homeless guy brushing his teeth (Honolulu), or a pair of crack bums in the throes of a mutual jack-off (Minneapolis), or a frazzled nanny stashing a soiled diaper in the Danielle Steel section (Santa Monica), or a teenaged Olivia Munn‘s whispered offers of a meth-for-homework swap (Shinjuku). You gotta stay on your toes. That doesn’t even count the everyday stuff, like the ever-present soiled condoms/female products, angry smears of feces, and seniors bickering with newspaper racks.

So to me, there is no more gratifying a fantasy than the new Deftones video for “You’ve Seen The Butcher” (below) off their horny Diamond Eyes record. It’s got a cozy library, some slamming pop metal, and buckets of blood where it belongs: coating the skin of four dozen sexy underwear chicks. And afterwards, there’s no need to blast yourself with a Purell canon. The only thing missing from the clip is a ZZ Top-style fool-to-cool resolution where I stumble upon the band and babes, drop my stack of stalker novels, and begin to twitch and sweat before being escorted into the band’s magical super-car for a full fashion makeover. Then straight back to the library to romance some bloody underwear hotties!

-ADF

The Deftones bring Diamond Eyes live to Europe in November/December then Australia in January. Dates here. Help Chi Cheng here.