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.