I had a good time in LA.  I visited the La Brea Tar Pits this time.  There’s a wall of wolf skulls.  Or jawbones.  I can’t remember except that it was immense.  Nonetheless, they have a wealth of fossils there.
Superlative to the museums I visited is still the Museum of Jurassic Technology. Oh, how I love to see the vision of one person come to fruition! There I caught a movie trailer that the founder was showing in order to acquire the funds to make a complete movie.  It was a waterfall with some piano in the background but at one point just the waterfall.  I love quiet nature videos.  I tried to make one in Ireland but my hand shook too much as I was driving.  I hope Mr. Wilson gets his funding.
I did a show with Hard N Phirm.  One of the guys in that group is Chris Hardwick, who hosted Singled Out and was physically bothered in House of 1000 Corpses.  They did a Tron rock opera not then but at another time. The other fellow, Mark, has no sense of smell. Really nice fellows. 

Good times were had in Boston. I got a ride with Alan Astor, who was playing the show, also. He rented a sweet ride that also fit a Boston band going back from a NY show, called Big Digits. He reminds me of Tom Jones. He’s got the magic as they say. He looks like one of the guys from Megaforce, the movie starring Barry Bostwick, made during the post-apocalyptic movie boom that followed the cape tails of Mad Max. His set was him and his Ipod. He has a band that plays his NY shows. Real good.
John Manson set up the show. Guys like him are pieces of gold. Vic Thrill is like that, too. They will set up shows and take care of bands and make sure everything’s cool and go out of their way to help you out. The bill was John’s band, Young Sexy Assassins, Heloise, Alan Astor, and me.
If you ever get the chance to see YSA, do it. They’re badasss.
Heloise sings with dancers and a band. She’s real good, too.
John’s girlfriend had a birthday. So, we met up at her house for the before-show party. Her sister’s accordion was broken and I tried to fix it but needed more time. So, I put on a party hat and a couple of blinking rings and hung out with the locals. A parade ensued and the party marched down the street to the venue with a boombox in a shopping cart leading the way.
I hate watching hecklers during someone else’s set which is what I did. I get so angry. It’s the same feeling as someone talking in a movie theater- when you think they’re done, they start up again. Oh, well. I let it go.
I rode to my couch with John and Eve and Eve’s dad and Rich. Eve had the hiccups so I tried scaring her in the car and it didn’t work. So, when we got out of the car I got rid of her hiccups by staring at her. It’s awesome when this works.
“Are your hiccups gone?”
“Yes.”
So, then her dad asked me to help him walk home 9 miles. So, I stared at him, told him he was good, and watched him walk down the street. I hope he made it home okay.
I woke up on John’s couch and no one was around. So, I made myself coffee with the espresso machine that he had picked up from a moving neighbor. Really good coffee. And yesterday’s paper.
Then, his new roommate came in and we hung out and went to a brunch down the street. Really nice people. Really nice. I met this girl who drives an escort. Not the car but the harlot. She makes sixty dollars an hour. When I say she I mean the driver. One of the customers lives with his mom and waits for her to go to bingo. There’s a movie to be made.
Now I have “Never Been to Me” stuck in my head. Just kidding. But maybe now you do.
I took the Lucky Star bus to Chinatown NY. It wasn’t bad. Although, I think the driver left someone at the Roy Rogers. Thank goodness I hate Roy Rogers.
I got home and watched Sin City and fell asleep. Nick Offerman kicks ass.

I bought a soft case for my piano on Saturday so that I wouldn’t have to carry my big, hard case on the train. I hate going into music stores and magic stores. I always feel like an idiot. I should leave magic stores alone, anyway. I’ve got enough crap I can try to master without buying the latest bank breaker.
Speaking of magic, I had time after getting my case to get a beer with Magic Brian and Riley. Magic’s been gone all summer street performing in Europe so it was good seeing him again. I like the smell of beer. I guess that makes me a dork but I already told you I do magic tricks.
On Sunday I played at Purchase College. I took the Metro train to White Plains and then waited for the #12 bus. After waiting about half an hour, a student pointed to a passing shuttle that was free and faster to the college. So, we ran to that one and it stopped everywhere: malls, grocery store, hotel, smoke break; but I got to the school on time.
I wandered around the venue a bit and waited for Jesse, the promoter. He had bought a deli tray and five cakes (cake replaces beer) so I went with him to the grocery store to hang out a little. He’s a good guy. He had booked me at a club in a strip mall a couple of years ago. That was a fun night, too.
I played with Beans. He’s excellent at rapping acapella. So good at it. He doesn’t need beats. And then there was this band called Nuclear Power Pants. The two singers were conjoined twins accompanied by a big coat for two and a band (including a g-board) with foam dinosaur heads that glowed from the black lights. Their lyrics were wonderfully dumb and I loved them. I love bands like that. They reminded me of the 2 Skinnee J’s. I couldn’t stay for Dead Unicorn because I had to catch the train back to NYC. I didn’t have any cake.

I wore my sequin jacket during my set at Jam on the River. It looks good but I got a bit slow from the heat towards the end of the set.
I went to the FYE tent to sign some cd’s and a storm came in. Holy shit was it awesome. The cd’s blew off the table and the canopy began to blow away. If not for my dynamic Lose Weight Exercise holding down the tent, FYE would have lost it all. The three employees and I were holding onto the greatest kite ever. And then I thought, idiot, I’m gonna get struck by lightning. And then, someone who had their cd signed, asked for a picture. So, I had one arm around her and one arm holding the shelter. Shit man, I was Thor.
We took down the roof and I went back to my dressing room and hung out with DJ Logic and was rewarded with a Yuengling. Good times.

I have a lot on my plate today. When I get home I can start finishing those things. One of the things I have to do is- no wait, two of the things are:
learn a Ben Ickies tune
learn a Baby Dee tune
Ben wrote a song for his orchestra but can’t be at his show and asked me to play it for him. That’s cool. I like his work.
And I have to learn a Baby Dee song for next week.
About three years ago I stayed at this lady’s house in Ohio. She let me have her bed and she slept elsewhere. Had I known she would be sleeping on the dining room floor I would have refused for she had to get up early to do her paper route. She, Una and I had stayed up that night in her kitchen drinking wine. She was telling me about her album that had organ, accordion, piano, harp, and her vocals with birds from her backyard as a background. And I think if there are two cd’s, then one is only birds from her backyard. So, I’ve been waiting to hear this for a long time.
Well, the other night, Sxip, the fellow I replaced in the Bindlestiffs, had a show and was to hook me up with a cd to learn her songs.
I missed Sxip’s wonderful band but saw the Wiyos who were fantastic. A three-piece old America band with a singer who sounds a lot like Hank Williams. They were great.
Yesterday, I went to Magic Brian’s and listened to Baby Dee’s cd on the way. It’s excellent. It’s a cross of Rufus Wainwright and Tiny Tim. Beautiful, haunting songs.
You can get it at:

www.durtro.com/artistsf

I get emails for shows all the time. And I try to make them. And sometimes its cold outside and my stomach hurts from not cooking my food well enough. Or some other reason. That would be a reason not to go out.
But when someone calls me and invites me to a show it’s hard not to go. They took time to make sure I knew they had a show and asked me to please come. I can’t let a friend down.
I made lobster ravioli for dinner and I think I messed up the sauce because my stomach hurt really bad not too soon after I ate.
I was given a PS2 and it can suck your life. I can leave it alone and not want to play but I had a hankering for an RPG so I found Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick.
The game itself is okay but the cool part is Bruce Campbell’s voice. I love that guy. http://www.kittenpants.org/21_ray/bruce.asp
Anyway, I was waiting for a friend to come by and get his beer keg from my house and in the meantime, I was trying to destroy Nathanial Payne with a shovel.
After the keg was gone my stomach felt better so I hiked to the show.
Miss Saturn was celebrating her birthday by hula-hooping in her birthday suit. I missed that part but hey, it’s alright.
I’ve never seen Galapagos so crowded. Travis, who works there, bought me a beer. And we watched best we could from the back.
Tanya, Miss Saturn, Kalki, and some dude, and some other lady did their hoops. The dude was awesome. They were all fantastic. Kalki and I shared a trailer with my girlfriend when we were in Circus Boreal in Alaska. She’s really good.
There was a handful of older gentlemen with cameras in the front. One guy had his digital that he would post on Saturn’s site, the other fellow had a conventional camera, and the third man had a 3-D camera. Magic Brian tells me that these guys go to all the burlesque shows. He brought his slides and the view-master-like viewer to show others. Good times.
Me and Noah and Magic got pizza at Ana Marie’s. That’s good pizza. And I walked home and played Bruce Campbell until 3.
Go see my friends do their things:
www.misssaturn.com
www.kalkihulagirl.com.au/kalki/
www.wauwausisters.com

Saturday night was one of the best saturday nights of saturday nights. Three bands at my house, friends, beer, new friends, good times all around.
My friend Jim brought his band, Deck of Jack, which was him and another guy named Fuzz. They were fantastic. I’d done a solo show with him at a BBQ a couple of years ago. But this one was a lot different.
Fun raps. Yo raps on the mike. Really fun.
And then the Live Ones. My roommate’s band with the drummer singing. Like the Carpenters set up but with KISS-like sermon banter and straight up rock. The guy, Mike, puked behind his drums because he played too hard. I love that. That’s a rock show. That’s the spirit. That’s the way it should be done.
And then we took the stage and we were sloppy but it was still fun. I messed up and ron had a lot of beer in him but he played well. He had sliced the tip of his finger off the week before with his new kitchen knife. It was nothing but good times.
ding dong, rock and roll.

I had a good Christmas. I still have my parents and a grandmother so I’m grateful.
My flight got into Nashville fine but I-24 was closed. So, I was stuck in Nashville. The good thing was that my friend, Janet, was in Nashville staying at her mom’s. So, I had a ride and a place to stay.
Her mom is really, really nice. I think she was a beauty queen at one time. When she picked me up she asked if I was hungry.
“Yeah”
“Do you eat meat?”
“Yeah”
She asked this because Janet doesn’t eat any meat except fish. And by the way, this makes you a fisheater not a vegetarian. I dated a vegetarian whose dad got really excited when he found out I ate meat. Such joy is found in a meat-eating buddy.
“I guess we can just stop at a fast-food place and I can pick something up.”
And then she started dialing the cel-phone.
“You like steak?”
“Yes”
“Hi, I’d like to order a . . .”
And she got me a steak at Outback.
We got to the house and Janet was laid up due to a broken ankle. She was doing video work for Cradle of Filth in Canada and broke her ankle. I like Cradle of Filth.
There were plenty of Michelob Ultra’s in the fridge and they went into my belly with the delicious steak. I crave meat and beer alot. I tried to be vegan for 12 days and I felt great but fell on the 11th day to a free dinner of Steve’s BBQ and Schlitz.
I was at Janet’s from Wednesday through Christmas morning. I felt like a Dicken’s character- a poor lad sitting with a rich invalid girl, drinking beer, watching movies.
Her mom made a big Christmas dinner with Turkey and mashed potatoes and stuffing. Stove Top is good. It hasn’t changed.
On Christmas day, Janet’s stepbrother, Jason, drove me to Clarksville where my folks met me to drive the rest of the way. The road from Clarksville to Cadiz was still shitty but not as bad.
The next day my brother’s family came and spent the rest of my time playing with a 2 year old and a 4 year old who love their Uncle Jon.

I like playing living rooms.
I played in Jessica Delfino’s living room last night. It was a great show. It was a variety show with:
Epstein and Hassan www.theblackandthejew.com
Eurotrash
www.odebratwins.com
Jessica Delfino
jessydelfino.blogspot.com
Haunted Pussy
www.hauntedpussy.com
Dan Fishback
www.cheeseonbread.com
Adira Amram
www.whoownsjackkerouac.com
Nick Jones
www.oojamadome.org
and hosted by Mormon Surprise

I like playing living rooms. They’re extremely intimate and I don’t have to plug in. I’ve played them before at parties but nothing like this. Common Rotation, kings of the living room tours, reintroduced me to the charms of a stranger’s living room but this was the gold monkey of living room shows. Next time you gotta come.

This day’s got me down a little. I can’t hide it. I don’t have a good poker face. It’s rainy and I saw a lot of carnage this morning, watching Dawn of the Dead before I went to work. What doom those people had being alone in a vast mall with lots of other people outside. Angry dead people wanting to come in.
I’m sad Mekhi Phifer died. He believed in me all through 8 Mile.
I wish I were on the road right now. Being on the road when it’s rainy is cozy.

I played a birthday last night at the Hotel Utah in San Francisco. It was all secret and shit. These folks brought me and I hid in this hallway so as not to blow the surprise for this nice girl, Alysha, and her 30th birthday.
It’s a nice room, the Hotel Utah. It’s got an upright on stage and the room is very intimate. Some shows go perfect and that one did for me. I’m always apprehensive to play parties because they are parties and not shows but that was a wonderful show.
I played a 4-year-old’s birthday a long time ago and it sucked. It was my bosses’ kid and he and his wife were real nice but it sucks playing to tiny children running around. This was nothing like that.
I kept the songs to the fun ones since it was a happy time. I’m enjoying playing piano at shows now. The last show I did I covered a Garth Brooks cover of a Billy Joel song on the piano.
The hosts of this party were very gracious and accomodating. I couldn’t have had a better night.

I played 2 shows Friday night. I accidentally had 2 booked. The first one was at the Balazo Gallery in San Francisco and the second one was down the street at the Odeon Bar.
The first one was booked by my friend, Clitty. That’s his name. He used to come to my Wednesday night weekly shows in Dallas that were usually bare of anyone. He’s a good guy.
It’s a nice place with a bad sound system. It worked good enough. I liked those people that came. I liked them alot. Clitty’s band played and rocked me hard. Their singer looked like a lady, like one of the Bangkok Ladyboys. His mike went out and he shouted in everyone’s ear, one at a time. They’re called Triple Cobra. You should see them.
I finally met Chicken John. He used to do circus stuff with the Bindlestiffs I think. His bar is nice. I went on after some belly dancers. They were pretty. I finally went on at 1. There was a guy, about 50 something, going behind the bar and serving himself. He talked loud to people and was the bar’s darling. That guy went nuts over me. He is me in 20 years. I think his name was Flash.

I played a show with my Common Rotation friends last Friday. They’re a swell bunch. The tops. It was at the Bitter End. I like the place but the actual room setup is hard for me. It’s got audiences on the sides as well as the front so you can’t look at everyone at once. They do have a grand piano and I took advantage of it. They played a great set and put the full band on. Some girl had a birthday and she and her friends gave me a plate of wonderfully small baked pastries. And when I got settled after my set, Mr. 102-TMBG-Shows(aka TDK, aka Mike) gave me a bag of Hershey Minatures. He’s a real good guy. They were soon gone but not because of me but because my girlfriend was helping me watch my Lose Weight Exercise. It’s good because I’ve been running again.
I’m working on a new Queen cover. I’m also working on songs for the Circus show. I was gonna play one of the new ones that night but didn’t feel it was ready. My piano is bad ass.

Magic Brian’s show went better than it did the last time. I did Dr. Wankle better and played very well on the old piano. I like Parkside alot. Andy and Karen, the folks that run it, are sweet sweet people. And every time I come in that place at anytime Pete, who runs sound and does other stuff, usually buys me a drink.
My friend, Mackin, showed up. He’s a stand-up fellow. He did his Bobby Brady at my cd-release. We hung out for a long time. I hadn’t seen him in forever.
I played my horse song again. I like that song. I’ve been working on it for a long time and finally “finished” it.
I like playing piano at shows alot. One time I played at my friend Wilder’s house. He has a baby grand in this old Dark Shadows house in Staten Island. Parlor shows are the old living room shows. Leave the kids in bed because I’m coming to your house and playing nighttime songs.

One day I was getting off the subway to go to work and I saw thin red tape blocking one of the exits to the surface. At the stairs was this guy in a fedora, trenchcoat and a suit that looked as if he had gone to the detective clothing store to buy his workclothes.
I nodded to his direction and told my boss, “That cop bought his clothes at the detective store.” By the time I got upstairs, I realized it was part of a Law and Order shoot.
This morning I went to pick up a shirt at the cleaners and saw this lady on the corner dressed in fortune-telling clothes. There’s no other way to describe it. She had the dress of a fancied old world peasant and she had a red scarf made of lace as a bonnet. Anyway, she had a cup and was going up to strangers. When it was my turn she said, “We’re going to vandalize the world . . . Vandalism.” I love living in this town.
My band played Sunday night at La Belle Epoque. I was going to dress up like Matlock but couldn’t get it together so I just wore a nice suit and colored my eyes. My ladyfriend was Betty Davis.
This place is gorgeous. It looks like a cross between a French restaurant and an old-timey ice cream parlor. It’s on the second floor above an antique store two blocks south of Union Square.
I got to play the grand piano and even though I couldn’t hear myself it was still cool to play it. My friend, Dan Dzula, sat in on the drums that night. His brother puts on fantastic puppet shows. Sammy dressed like a Parisian mechanic and he played real good. Dave went as himself yesterday and had to get home to draw pictures for Dr. Pepper. He drew my wolf.
Ben Ickies started a new band called The Ambitious Orchestra. It’s an 18-piece band that includes strings, bassoon, accordions, and Mr. Ickies conducting. It was very ambitious and lovely.
County Club and the Porn Horns were good, too. The singer/trumpet player dressed like Hacksaw Jim Duggan and the singer/sax player dressed like Mario and the other singer/sax player dressed like Teen Wolf! I was a judge for the costume contest and made sure that guy won. He did the dance when he won. It would have been even more badass if the other sax player went as Styles. And it would have been even more badass than that if they’d brought a portable basketball goal.
I think the restaurant was a little peeved. They wanted people to eat dinner and most had already eaten and didn’t want $12 ravioli. It was a good time though. A real good time.

I played at Magic Brian’s show the other night. It was me, Chris Rozzi, Magic Brian and Silvia Machete. I like doing this show. It’s fun and I’m with friends. I was doing a character named Dr. Wankle, a time-travel scientist, who helps the Randy Brothers find a way to go back in time. I sucked. I was ready and then when the show started it felt like someone took a spiritual shit somewhere and I was lost.
And then I played my set. I’ve gotten better at ignoring foreign sounds during shows but that night I was terrible. There was some incessant conversation going on and it was throwing me off because I always want to know what someone is saying. I forgot a whole line from a song and stopped playing to patter with the audience. And then I was thrown off by myself being thrown off.
And I couldn’t figure out where the sound was coming from. I tried being funny about it but couldn’t direct it anywhere.
I did play a new song. And it was good.
When you go to a new restaurant and the food sucks and you spend at least 10 dollars more than you should have-that’s like a bad show. “Man, I’m never going to eat fish there again. I can’t believe I spent $80 on a piece of catfish. I can’t believe I spent $40 on a gourmet hotdog that gave me the shits. Where did the money go? Now I have to buy Tums. I had one beer. I guess that was a $10 beer. I can’t sleep because my stomach hurts. And when I finally sleep I have nightmares of a routines that won’t stop.”
Bad shows are like that but are more like children.
I had a cat once that I rescued from a locked garage. His brothers died and the mother was gone. His eyes were glued shut. But the vet did a blood transfusion and the kitty was fine. But he was a little crazy because he didn’t have a mom to feed from.
Bad shows are like sick kittens. They just need a little love and a blood transfusion. And eye medicine.