Dylan? In Outer Space?

I mean, I knew Bob Dylan was cool, but I had no idea he was so cool he could transcend space and time and wind up in the Ionian Nebula! Holy Crap!

Further proof that Dylan is great, and also that I'm a geek.

Demand that I play somewhere!

Hey Everyone,

I stumbled on an interesting web tool that lets people 'demand' I play somewhere, so I figured I'd give it a try.

Since the Pachelbel thing has been spreading around the internet and people have been emailing me asking when I may be coming to their city, state, country, I think this little gizmo might help. Especially in proving to clubs in places not familiar with me (like let's say... um... England) that people there would actually come see a show of mine.

So, if you feel like it, give it a try and let me know what you think, either via comment here, my myspace page, or emailing me through my website.

Thanks!

I KNEW they were a little too creepy

True.com has always given me the creeps. Their ads are far too blatantly sexual for a reputable dating site, and the way they tout their use of background checks has always made me suspicious. Today's New York Times helps support some of my distaste for True, and hopefully soon someone will be able to prove that True.com is a completely evil tool of the devil.

What first irked me was the juxtaposition between their purported propriety and their lascivious advertising. It screams dishonesty, or at least ulterior motives.

They tout the fact that they require all users to undergo a criminal background check when signing up for their site, ostensibly to weed out felons and married people trying to lie about their status, and they use this as a selling point to position themselves as a more upstanding company. But then their ads feature shirtless women (look closely at the ad with the woman in the pink shirt, the garment is actually her bare skin color-corrected in photoshop) gazing longingly into the camera. The headlines say things like "it's nice to be naughty" and other I'm a whore, come do me sentiments.

But if this were merely misleading advertising, it could be dismissed as someone trying to make a buck. More alarm bells go off when I hear that the company doing the background checks for True.com is ChoicePoint, the same company that sold convicted felon information to Florida before the 2000 election and royally screwed up democracy in the process.

So not only is True.com run by the kind of creeps that use sex to make money, they're the kind of creeps who use sex to lure people into their data-mining trap so they can turn our country into a fascist corporate state run by a bunch of arrogant Texas tycoons.

P.S. I love Texas, my mom lives there. It's just some of the businessmen that come out of there I have a problem with.

Fun show or just chaos?

I'm still not sure. Last night I did a show at a private club in Princeton, NJ where college students had the run of an open bar for the hour and a half leading up to and all during my show. They were an enthusiastic and energetic crowd, but at times it was just a hot mess.

During the drive home I tried to take an inventory of how many jokes I had to bail out on because I was interrupted, not by heckles or anything mean, just exuberant cheering or people chiming in with their two cents on whatever subject I was about to do a joke on. For example, right off the bat I had to eat my Ronald Reagan joke (which is one of my faves) because the mere mention of the name "Ronald Reagan" set of two solid minutes of hooting and hollering in appreciation for the former Prez (it was Princeton don't forget). If I tried to do a joke about a style of music or a particular performer, it was met with several students hollering their support for the subject followed by several other students denouncing same.

At times I felt like Jerry Springer, but without a stage full of baby-daddies (as far as I know).

But when I was able to do a song or a bit I got a great response, and the club showed me and my opening act the utmost hospitality, so I shan't hold their youthful exuberance against them. All in all it turned out well, even though it wasn't quite the show I was expecting.

My lasting image of the night will be thanks to the guy who introduced us. He was the most boisterous in the room before the show, taking full advantage of the open bar, and our biggest supporter throughout the night. At the end of the evening, when it came time to finally load up the car and head back to NYC, he was in the men's room clutching porcelain in a sleepy embrace.

Hope your head doesn't hurt too badly today.

Rock and Roll or Pathetic?

On a recent flight back to NYC I went from first class to no class in about 2 minutes and it was actually pretty fun.

First class accommodations come my way once in a while, not because I have any money to pay for them but because I have an assload of frequent flyer miles and upgrades. On this particular flight I decided to cash in some upgrades to move on up to the annoying little section in the front of the plane that everyone else has to walk by on the way to their seats. I think that's the most awkward moment of any flight, walking on the plane past the first class passengers, so I boarded the plane late to avoid the discomfort. My seat was going to be there whether I got on the plane first or last.

Boarding the plane later wasn't my only breach of first class etiquette though, I also turned off my cell phone when the flight attendants said to instead of talking on it until they told me for the third time to shut it off. And then there were my dress code violations: my tattered Carhartt jacket and faded jeans instead of business attire.

But the best part of the whole experience was getting off the plane first, walking down to the baggage claim, past all of the drivers holding signs for those they were there to pick up, outside past the taxi stand and straight onto the M60 bus. I hope some fellow first class passengers saw that and wondered why someone would go from a first class seat to an MTA bus without a second thought. Had they asked I would have told them "it's rock and roll, you wouldn't understand."

Or maybe it's just pathetic. Either way it was kind fun.