June 07, 2002 | 9:03 AM

Today is the day after graduation at the school where I work and no one is around. I am wearing black pants, a black t-shirt, red converse, and pig tails.

I love my job.

Right now I am sitting in my office listening to tunes. The tune which is occupying my eardrums at the moment is �See Emily Play� by Pink Floyd circa 1967, while they were still hip psychedelic modsters as opposed to the prog rock dinosaurs they became. Don�t get me wrong�I still have affection for the Pink Floyd of later years�the �Dark Side of The Moon� era Floyd or even �The Wall� era Floyd. I was after all a depressive thirteen year old at one point who thought �Comfortably Numb� was like the deepest thing ever!

But the Floyd I love love love and respect is the Syd Barrett Floyd. Those two albums, �Saucerful of Secrets� and �Piper at the Gates of Dawn� as well as the aforementioned single, �See Emily Play� are a couple of the most influential records in pop music ever. Early Floyd is just so innovative and different from anything else that was going on at the time.

There�s a line in the song �1974� by Robyn Hitchcock that goes,

It feels like 1974
Syd Barrett�s last record, he can�t sing anymore
He�s gonna have to be Roger now for the rest of his life

That�s a great line. The �Roger� in the lyric refers to Syd Barrett�s real name, which was Roger Barrett, and how after his breakdown he became this emotionally crippled albeit unassuming suburban type who lives with his mum.

Except John and I thought the lyric was:

It�s gonna have to be Roger now for the rest of your life

We thought that the �Roger� in the lyric was referring to Roger Waters, the member of Floyd who became dominant after Syd left , and how that was indicative of the shift from playful mod psychedelic sixties to dull overblown symphonic rock seventies.

I was so disappointed when I found out we were wrong.

I have unwittingly jumped on the neo-mod bandwagon today. I listened to The White Stripes on the way to work, just spent twenty minutes drooling over Syd Barrett, and am now singing along to the Yard Birds.

I am always incredibly uncomfortable when what I am listening to happens to fit in completely with the zeitgeist. This is, I know, highly immature of me, and is one step above the slimy scenesters and cred grubbers who don�t even like music. I have always been this way, though. In 1992 I was totally uncomfortable listening to Nirvana even though I loved them and had for awhile.

I�m not sure exactly what makes me so uncomfortable about liking what everyone else likes. Or, that�s not it. Because I don�t feel uncomfortable liking like, John Lennon or Elvis Costello or PJ Harvey, or Radiohead, or Elliott Smith and everyone on the planet likes those people. And I don�t even feel uncomfortable admitting to liking un-hip bands like The Indigo Girls or The Grateful Dead or Fleetwood Mac (The whole Lindsey-Stevie thing makes me gushygooey. I am a sap, what can I say.)

Basically it�s this�I just don�t like scenes. I don�t like scenes that everyone joins. I�m not a joiner. When Mtv jumps on the bandwagon and lets The White Stripes perform on the Mtv Movie Awards (they were fucking amazing by the way�holy shit they ruled) and all of these teenybopper extras are pogoing along in their red and white uniforms, and you know those kids would be just as psyched to headbang along with Fred Durst, it just makes me very very uncomfortable.

Ok. My mod fix has been satiated for the moment. I am now listening to Dave Brubeck. And he�s hipper than all the vespa riding bob cut sporting mods in all the world yo�. Put that in your coffee and stir it.