Paravonia

Football Fandom vs. The English Language

2010-08-03T10:30:00.000-07:00

It's early August, NFL teams are still in training camp and I'm already sick of the overbearing football coverage (thank you Brett Favre for stealing Shark Week's thunder by announcing... nothing).

Even more frustrating will be the consistent abuses of language and the lexicon of completely made up words we'll be inundated with once the games start. Here is some of my favorite creative vocabulary I've been hearing lately from the talking heads who announce the sport:

Differential=difference

Though it's actually a part of a car, or a derivative of a function, football announcers always use "differential" to mean "difference." Of course, people will say that the official definition of 'differential' now includes 'difference,' so the two words are technically synonymous, but why alter the definition of 'differential' to accommodate these folks when there's the perfectly good word 'difference' sitting right there unused?

And yes, you can point out that I'm a hypocrite because I used 'people' instead of 'persons' but that's an argument I will vigorously refudiate.

Defensed=defended

Another word falling into the technically-correct-but-annoying category is "defensed," as in "that play was well defensed." I don't know what football announcers have against the verb "defend" or why they feel "well-defended" doesn't sound as good as "well-defensed" but hearing conjugations of "defense" is to me like hearing a fork on a chalkboard.

Space=the open field, or what was once called "the flat"

Then there's the baffling use of the word 'space.' Watch any football game for a few minutes and you'll hear an announcer say something like "they need to get the ball to him in space," or "he's very dangerous out in space." These announcers were probably kids in the 70's when everything was better in space: Josey and the Pussycats in Space, Pigs in Space, etc.

But what they mean is the open field, like, the runner needs 'space' around him to execute a play (that's a great insight on the part of the announcers, by the way, saying that a player will do better when a defender [sorry, a defenser] isn't all up in his grill).

Many times this open field they're talking about is specifically the area toward the sidelines within a few yards of the line of scrimmage, an area that used to be called "the flat." I don't know what happened to "the flat" but we used to use it all the time back in the day. Short passes were called "flat routes" because when you drew them on paper they were shorter, or flatter than longer patterns. Pitches, laterals, sweeps, were all designed for "the flat." Maybe they opted for "space" over "flat" because "flat space" doesn't have enough gravity.

That's the best astrophysics pun you will read all day.

Chippy=irritable, fractious, testy

This word apparently comes from Canada and the world of ice hockey, which means it has absolutely no place in American football. It means fractious, and it's meant to describe when tempers get flared and players get more combative and start to scuffle. But it just sounds dumb, doesn't it? "They're getting a little chippy out there" or "this game is starting to get chippy" doesn't quite capture the feeling of watching 300-pound dudes about to tear each others heads off.

Now, I understand that when announcing a game that's watched by millions of teenage boys you can't really use the word "testy," and "fractious" sounds a little bookish and snooty, but there's got to be something better than a word that also means prostitute or a fish and chips shop. "Touchy"? "Ornery"? "Quarrelsome"? "Obstreperous"?

O.K. these aren't much better, so I'll make a deal: I'll give Dan Dierdorf a season's worth of saying "chippy" if he says "obstreperous" just once.

Concert Film Excitement

2010-06-25T08:00:00.000-07:00

The Tell Your Friends! Concert Film shows this past Tuesday were a ton of fun, and if you weren't able to get to Brooklyn to see it live keep an eye out for the DVD which will hopefully be available by the end of the year. Woot! Concert film!

The lineup was a true representation of people who came up in New York's alternative comedy scene, with Leo Allen, Christian Finnegan, Kristen Schall & Kurt Braunohler, Liam McEneaney, me and more. It was also great to work with our director, Victor Varnado, who's a good friend and great comedian in his own right. His previous concert film project, The Awkward Comedy Show, aired on Comedy Central and looked amazing.

Thanks to everyone that made it to the shows and I'll post any info on when and where it will hit t.v. and be available on DVD so you too can enjoy the big little show from the lower east side.

Sincerely flattered by the Boondocks?

2010-06-12T09:51:00.000-07:00

The plot of tomorrow's new episode of The Boondocks on Adult Swim has the kids doing a candy-selling fundraiser that becomes very much like the drug trade. Hmmm.... where have I heard that before?

The Boondocks:

Find more videos like this on The Spill Movie Community

Me doing Pushing Band Candy:

I just lost over 3,000 fans!

2010-04-22T22:47:00.000-07:00

Well, the lunkheads at facebook changed their site again and now instead of people being a "fan" of the official Rob Paravonian page they now simply "like" the Rob Paravonian page. And the people and things I was once a "fan" of I now, according to facebook, merely like. How lame is that?

Being a fan of something is more than hitting the like button, it's actually being involved in it. If I'm a fan of a band I don't just like them, I'm going to try to see them when they're in town, I'm going to check out their new video when it's posted online, I want to know when their new album is coming out. I don't just like them, I like like them.

So now, instead of having a group of fans that I think may be interested when I post a new video or something, facebook tells me that a bunch of people "like" me, in the same way they "like" someone's status update or a picture of a lol cat.

So thanks, facebook. I was once a comedian who felt like he had people interested in his work and now I'm a f#$%ing Lol Cat. I can haz audience?

To the many folks that were once my facebook fans, I miss you!

Lol Cats are freakin' funny, though.

My previous CD now available online!

2010-04-03T09:21:00.000-07:00

To celebrate the online re-release of Living it Down, the CD I released in 2001, here's a link to one of the CD's more popular tracks--Particle Board--from my performance on Comedy Central's Premium Blend of that same year.

The CD is now available at CD Baby, in physical and digital form, and soon it will be up at iTunes, Amazon, and various other digital outlets. Check it out, and enjoy the video with me not only in a suit but sporting a bit more hair than usual. And a sparkly guitar! Oooh, sparkle...

Jokes.com

Rob Paravonian - Particle Board Song

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Dang, first weather cancellation in years

2010-02-26T09:58:00.000-08:00

Last night, when I had to cancel my show at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, I realized it was my first weather-related cancellation in almost 15 years. I guess my luck had to run out eventually. Two years ago I had dozens of shows in the northern plains and was able to out-maneuver storms or just plain get lucky that they hit on non-travel days. I drove to Dennison, Ohio, a day early to beat an ice storm, and I even made it safely through a blizzard in Wisconsin to play at a school that had canceled classes.

I was beginning to think I was invincible weather-wise! Which is why this storm has been especially humbling. Lehigh is only 90-some-odd miles away from Brooklyn so I should have been able to borrow a snowmobile (snow machine for my Canadian friends) to get there, or retro-fit my Civic with some skis or something. But no, 14" of snow in central New Jersey has ruined my 15-year streak of making it to my shows.

And I don't even have a good stuck-in-a-blizzard storm. I'm just sitting here in my apartment cooking up frozen pizzas and waiting for it to stop snowing (over a foot here in Brooklyn). At least the last time I couldn't make a show I was stuck in my car for 14 hours underneath a freeway overpass in central South Dakota...

...there's the view from my windshield. It even made the cover of my first full CD which I entitled "Don't Crowd The Plow" in honor of the event. I don't think I'll get a cool title out of this storm. "Unplanned Frozen Pizza Party?" "Brooklyn Igloo Pizzafest" I got nothin'!!

Children's Video off to a fast start!

2010-02-06T14:46:00.000-08:00

I just posted a new video for the album version of the Children's Song and in just a couple of days it's gotten over 15,000 views! That's the fastest start of any video I've posted, even the Pachelbel Rant, which took a couple of weeks to get its first 10,000 views. So thanks to everyone who's watched it and passed it along to their friends!

It's always interesting to find out where these things end up. My sister sent me a link to the website of the local CW station in Dallas/Fort Worth because they had posted the video there! Pretty cool.

And mad thanks to Jennifer Spragg who played the frazzled and overworked mom in the video. She's a hilarious actor and writer I know from working with the New York sketch group Spurn.

And for extra fun, check out the comments section for a discussion of my lousy accent. In the live version of the song I tell people I'm going to be doing a bad British accent, but without the disclaimer in the new video people have taken it upon themselves to discuss the topic at length. You just never know what people are going to fixate on.

Happy February and such!

Headlining Nashville with a special deal for my peeps!

2010-01-25T08:15:00.000-08:00

Nashville, Tennessee, ladies and gentlemen!

I'm really excited to be able to perform in such a great music town, and my friends at Zanies have set up a great deal for my mailing list and Rob P. website fans: only $5 for tickets if you use the discount code "RobPRocks Discount" and buy in advance through the box office.

Spread the word and bring your friends! That's a lot of enterainment. For just five dollars. Here are the details:

Rob Paravonian Headlines!
Wednesday, Feb 3
7:30 pm (doors open at 6:30)
Zanies
2025 8th Avenue South
Nashville, TN 37204
615-269-0221

Here's the facebook event page.

The fine print on the ticket deal:
The "RobPRocks Discount" is NOT VALID for online ticket purchase. Advanced Ticket Purchase is REQUIRED, call 615.269.0221! MENTION the "RobPRocks Discount" to receive the appropriate PROMOTION. Offer is valid ONLY on Wednesday, February 3, 2010 for up to FOUR(4) tickets, cannot be combined with any other offer and is not valid for SOLD OUT shows. Zanies Comedy Club requirements: Minimum age of 18 or older with valid photo ID and TWO item minimum per person purchase inside the club.

From A Bears Fan In Brooklyn

2009-12-29T13:30:00.000-08:00

I watched last night's Bears-Vikings game at a local sports bar here in Brooklyn, thinking some of my fellow Chicago fans would be there, but as it turned out I was alone in rooting for the men in dark blue. And there's something about being the only person in a bar rooting for a team that brings out the primal urge in others to disparage the outsider, like I was an A.V. club nerd trying to sit at the cool kids table. A primal urge to be That Guy, the one who instead of cheering one team prefers to disparage the other.

The prime offender of That Guy-ism last night was Puffy Coat, a guy in a puffy winter coat and a Yankees cap. Yes, I said "Yankees cap." I don't know why he was rooting for the Vikings, but he came in during halftime, saw my Bears jersey, looked at the score to see that Chicago was up 16-0 and yelled at me "The Bears ain't gonna win, YOU CAN'T KEEP FAVRE DOWN!"

Thanks for that. Who knew a guy from Louisiana and who played most of his career in the upper Midwest had such a passionate following in the 5 boroughs?

The Vikings get the ball to open the half and march down the field. Puffy Coat gets in my face and yells "see!? BRETT FAVRE!" as if my Bears jersey actually said "Brett Favre sucks." I looked down to check. Nope, it's just a Bears jersey.

"Yeah, he's a great quarterback," I said. The Bears have had to play against #4 twice a season for as long as I can remember. I know he's good and I've never said otherwise, I just want my team to win is all. I'm kind of a silly fan that way.

The Bears are flagged for pass interference in the endzone to set the Vikings up at the goal line.

"WHAT'D I SAY?!"

I didn't respond as I assumed the question rhetorical.

Adrian Petersen runs the ball in for a Vikings touchdown.

"THERE YOU GO! A.P.!! YOU CAN'T STOP HIM" he yells as he walks over to me.

"Why are you yelling at me?" I asked.

"I ain't yelling at you!" he said loudly about a foot from my face. "It's sports, you know, you come to a bar, have a drink, represent for your team and you gotta talk a little trash."

"Why do we have to talk trash?" I asked. As we discussed the merits of talking trash we missed the missed extra point. A vital part of the game as it would turn out.

On the ensuing kickoff the Bears manage a great return and are able to score. I was happy. I jumped out of my seat. But I didn't yell. I was the only Chicago fan and there was no one to yell to. Except for Puffy Coat, but he had conveniently gone to the bathroom.

The Vikings get the ball and begin to march down the field and Puffy Coat returns.

"BRETT FAVRE!!"

"He's good," I admit.

"That's why the Bears ain't gonna win!"

"Look, in the first half when the Bears were doing well I wasn't being an a-hole about it," I said.

"Hey, it's nothing personal. You know, it's your team, it's my team. It ain't about you." He seemed genuinely hurt that I didn't enjoy his antics. And it's not like I really thought his behavior was personal, it was just incredibly annoying. I didn't think Puffy Coat had it in for me, but that didn't change the fact that there was a dude yelling at me every few minutes.

By now Brett Favre mania is sweeping through the bar, and the once indifferent bargoers are all starting to cheer the Vikings comeback. The Vikings score on a throw to Visanthe Shiancoe and there are cheers from everyone in the joint except me. I'm living a nightmare. I don't mind the three Minnesota fans at the bar--they've been rooting for the Vikings since the beginning--I just can't take the bandwagoneers piling on.

The Vikings tie it up at 23 and I think the game is just about over for the Bears, but they have another great kickoff return and score quickly. Too quickly, I know from experience watching #4 in these situations. He has 4+ minutes and all of his timeouts. He's going to score.

But something's missing. Where's Puffy Coat? Why isn't he in my face every second? I think that he might have finally realized that I'm not the trash talking type, but the truth is he's been distracted by two single women at the bar, and being that libido always trumps bravado, he's been working his game on them rather than torturing me.

The Vikings score. It's 30-30 and we're going to overtime.

Puffy Coat walks down the bar toward me and I steel myself for a gut-wrenching overtime full of pain and suffering and taunts from Brett Favre's biggest fan in Brooklyn. He stops in front of me, then throws his hand up for a handshake/man-hug good-bye.

"You're not staying for overtime?" I ask, surprised that such a ardent supporter would leave during the tensest part of the game."

"Nah, I can't do overtime," he said. "You know it's all good."

I said that it was, indeed, all good.

It was probably better that he wasn't there to see the Bears win the toss and quickly get into range for a winning field goal, or there to see Robbie Gould miss said field goal. Or to see BRETT FAVRE get sacked on consecutive plays on the next drive, Or to see the Bears go nowhere after getting the ensuing punt.

And it was definitely better that he wasn't there to see Adrian Peterson fumble, the Bears recover and score a touchdown on the following play, because if he had, all of my pent up frustration from the trash talking might have exploded with me screaming "BRETT FAVRE!!! YOU CAN'T WIN THE GAME WHEN YOU'RE ON THE SIDELINES, MOTHER SCRATCHER!!"

Because that would have been bad. I would have let anger and hatred lead me to the Dark Side. I would have been That Guy.

Climbing the Charts!! (a small chart, but still...)

2009-12-05T10:30:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone,

My new CD is 2nd most popular album in the "Comedy Rock" genre on CD Baby! Check out the listing here.

Thanks to all who've purchased the CD, and if you haven't yet, pick it up at CD Baby and help it go to #1 (in the Comedy Rock genre). You can also buy downloads of the album or individual tracks there too.

Or you can get it at iTunes. So many options. It makes a great stocking stuffer, or a gift for one of those middle days of Hanukkah when you don't know what to get people.

Thanks again, everyone. You all rock!

It's a little blurry but...

2009-11-20T15:24:00.000-08:00

...it's still one of my favorite pictures. That's me and Lily Tomlin in the iconic chair she uses for the Edith Ann character.

The shows at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas were incredibly fun, and it was a huge thrill to work with such a legendary performer. I was impressed and amazed with her energy and talent, and working with her and her crew was a delight. I count myself very lucky to have had the chance to meet her and perform on the same bill.

Tow-tally awesome

2009-10-20T09:50:00.000-07:00

So, I guess the tow truck was parked illegally?

I saw this lovely little scene on the way to my show last night at Arcadia University. Needless to say I didn't worry about parking in a tow zone that night.

I wonder if the first tow truck driver ran up to the second and tried to explain that he was just there for a second, he had his flashers on and was going to be right back.

With the fear of parking retribution far from my mind, and a great crowd in attendance despite the fact that the Phillies had a playoff game and we were only about 20 miles from the City of Loving Brothers, we had a lovely show and a great time. Thanks Beaver Coll... I mean, Arcadia University!

Special CD Price Extended Through Monday!

2009-10-16T14:18:00.000-07:00

The introductory price promotion for my new CD was so successful, CD Baby ran out of copies in just a couple of days! Which means that for most of the promotional period the CD was listed as "out of stock."

So I've decided to leave the lower price in place until this Monday, October 19th, in case anyone tried to buy the CD and was denied.

Thanks to everyone who helped make the launch of the CD a success, and if you haven't picked up your copy of Songs From The Second Floor yet, head on over to CD Baby by Monday and you can get the CD for only $9.15!

The special price for the digital download has been extended too, so it will be $7.99 through Monday. It saves you a bit of dough and the upside is they never run out of the digital version over there.

Have a great weekend and look for a new video from the CD to be posted when the album becomes available on iTunes (still don't have a date on that, iTunes is notoriously slow to post).

Special price on new CD for 10 more days!

2009-09-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

My new CD, Songs From The Second Floor, is finally available on CD Baby! And for the next ten days you can buy the physical CD for only $9.15 in honor of the date the CD was supposed to be ready (Sep 15)!

And if you're a downloading type person and just want the digital version, you can buy the digital album for a special price of $7.99! You can even pick and choose tracks for $0.99 each, if you're so inclined.

Be the first to review the CD on CD Baby! Release your inner Lester Bangs and write a review of the new CD to tell others how incredibly awesome (or totally lame) it is!

The special prices will be in effect until October 10th, so order now. Regular prices are $12.97 for the CD and $9.99 for the album download.

Stay tuned, the album will be posted on iTunes soon!

It's a live (link)!!! It's a live (link)!!!

2009-09-15T09:25:00.000-07:00

My new CD, Songs from the Second Floor, officially goes on sale today!

The big CD release partay is in beautiful, sunny, and no-longer-on-fire Southern California at Genghis Cohen in Los Angeles tonight at 8, but you can buy a digital copy right now at Digstation.com!

If you want to buy the actual, physical, non-virtual but still digital CD, it will be available at CD Baby later this week, and soon after that iTunes, Amazon.com and more!

Now, my marketing team told me maybe September 15th wasn't the best day to release the new CD because it will be hard to compete with Dan Brown's DaVinci Code sequel Paranoid Symbol Interpretation or whatever it's called, but I think my real competition is the self-help book The Werewolf's Guide To Life, a how-to guide for those suffering with lycanthropy, written by my friends Ritch Duncan and Bob Powers.

But I say there's room on the 15th for all of us. Stop by digstation and preview some tracks if you like, and I'll post when the album becomes available elsewhere.

New CD Promotional Campaign #2: Alternative Comedy Makeover

2009-09-09T12:08:00.000-07:00

With less than a week to go before the release of my new CD, it's time to make sure my styling sends the right message. If I'm going to be out there promoting and getting photographed, I have to ensure that those photographs portray me as the kind of person the people at the extensive marketing team at my label want me to be.

The look we've settled on is "alternative comedy." You know, the cool comedians, the kind of comedian indie music hipsters rally around; because if you get the pretentious and ironically stylish to follow you, Hollywood will fall in line. Have you ever wondered why you see the same ten comedians in every comedy film that's been released in the past 5 years? It's because they have been anointed as "cool." I need me some of that anointment.

Let me take you through the plan:

Picture 1: Before

This is absolutely no good. First of all, the smirk makes me look like I have confidence in what I'm doing, and confidence in what I'm doing would indicate that I've planned and rehearsed what I'm going to do on stage. Alternative comedians want you to think that they've neither planned nor rehearsed anything. If something ends up being funny it's simply because they're geniuses. Remember, effort is not cool.

Secondly, that shirt. No way. A collared shirt? That makes me look like I have a job. Nothing kills the alt. comedy aura faster than looking employed.

Picture 2: new shirt, new expression.

Much better. Note the ambiguous expression, could be confusion (I don't understand the world, here's my take), it might be a slightly plaintive plea to the audience (please have empathy for my skewed worldview), or it could be a blank stare (I'm so deep, my genius mind is elsewhere).

Also please note the shirt change. Instead of the collared dress shirt we now have a t-shirt with a preciously humorous but not really trying to be funny motto.

Picture 3: new do

That short hair wasn't working at all (see above re: employment). What I need is something kind of artsy, wistful, something that looks effortless.

Of course, to look effortless I'll need to hit a salon that will probably charge $60 for the do, and I'll need tons of styling product and a lot of time to get it just right. With the short hair I needed nothing but a $12 haircut every four weeks so one could argue that the short hair was truly the way to go effortless, but this makeover is about looking the part, not being the part, so a mop top it is.

Picture 4: facial hair

And finally, nothing says alt. comedy like a big, nasty beard. The bushy beard says "yeah, I know I'm in Hollywood trying to sell a script but I could just as easily be fly fishing in Bozeman, Montana." You want to give the impression that you spend too much time thinking deeply and uncovering the secret one-liners of the universe, you can't be bothered to worry about your appearance. You only set foot outside of your hermitage to do sets at the most influential of trendy comedy shows.

I think we're in good shape now. Look for me and my new look out there on the comedy scene plugging the hit alt. comedy/indie music album Songs From The Second Floor.

Available Sep. 15 at Digstation, CD Baby (hopefully, if they get their asses in gear with their site redesign), and eventually iTunes, Amazon and more.

Catch the West Coast CD Release Party on Sep 15th in L.A.!

Songs From The Second Floor CD Release Party
Tuesday, Sep. 15
seating at 7:45, show at 8:00
Genghis Cohen 740 N. Fairfax
Los Angeles, CA 90036
310.578.5591 for more info on the club/show
only $7!!

New CD Promotional Campaign #1: A Rob P. Signature Scent

2009-08-31T15:44:00.000-07:00

In order to roll with the big dogs in the music industry, you know--the Puffys, Jay-Zs, J-Los, Britney Spearses, the Luciano Pavarottis--I decided that I too needed a signature scent. I mean, just because I'm releasing my CD independently doesn't mean I can't employ some of the same mass market strategies of the major label artists, does it?

Actually, as it turns out, it does. Signature scents are a bit harder to put together in the DIY world than I thought. I don't have access to the animal testing, the custom glassware and the maquiladoras that the pros use.

But I still want to get this done, so I've decided that instead of selling the actual fragrance (yes, it's neither a 'cologne' nor a 'perfume' because I want it to be non gender-specific like CK Be or Pee Wee Herman) I'll be releasing the secret formula for my fragrance so you can mix up your own batch at home.

Ingredient 1: 40% Deep Woods Off

My scent is about being adventurous while also being responsible. Deep Woods Off brings to mind those long days and nights of summer camp, when you escaped the authoritarian rules of your parents and struck out on your own. You were ready to experience all that this world had to offer, but on your terms. The mosquitoes were kept at bay and people who could smell the slightly acrid industrial notes of repellent on you knew that you weren't one to get pushed around by nature.

Ingredient 2: 25% Vanilla Extract

Just a hint of vanilla in my signature scent will take people back to a time when cookie batter was mixed in a bowl, not cut from a tube. You take the time to carefully craft things, not choke down mass-produced corporate confections, and people will smell the air of refined taste in your presence.

Ingredient 4: 35% Old Spice.

Smells of Our Fathers could be a great memoir, but you won't have to read anything to know that Old Spice will circumvent any rational thoughts and go straight to those daddy issues we all have, good or bad. For the man, a little Old Spice will attract the woman who may not have gotten enough paternal attention and will therefore have lower self-esteem and a higher need for attention from you. For the woman a dash of the Spice will allow you to break down gender barriers and become your own authority figure. The resulting confidence will be the ultimate allure.

I hope to smell you all at a show soon!

"...and returning him safely to earth."

2009-07-24T09:18:00.001-07:00

I missed the big 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing while kickin' it in the Caribbean for a few days, but I'm back stateside to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the very important safe return of Apollo 11, which took place on July 24th, 1969, an anniversary that always calls to my mind a curious part of Kennedy's famous "moon" speech.

Kennedy: "First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth."

"and returning him safely to earth"? I always found it odd that he felt it necessary to specify that if we shot a man up to the moon, we'd have to get him back. It makes me think that if he hadn't specifically made a return trip part of the space program's goal it wouldn't have come up in any of the planning meetings.

Would he have gone to NASA and say "Hey, can we put a man on the moon?" and they would say, "sure, no problem. We could do that tomorrow."

"Could we bring him back?"

"Oh crap. That's going to take some work."

If Kennedy never said "and returning him safely to earth" maybe the moon landing, instead of being a worldwide inspirational achievement would have been the most horrible, t.v. disaster ever broadcast as people watched Neil and Buzz say to Houston, "o.k., we're ready to come home."

Silence.

"Houston? We're ready for the return trip."

"Um, give us a minute Eagle." Dammit! No one said we'd have to bring them back!?!

Perhaps that's the old legislator in Kennedy coming out, making sure you spell everything out exactly so no one tries to cut corners on you. It's like starting a new schoolyard game and you're working out the rules, "I call that if we send a man to the moon we have to bring him back. You have to, I called it!"

To Bch Or Not To Bch?

2009-07-17T10:14:00.000-07:00

As I'm finishing up work on my new CD (which will hopefully "drop," as the kids say, the first week of September) I've stumbled upon a quandary. A dilemma, a veritable pickle. I'm trying to figure out whether or not to bleep out a certain word on a certain song, and more to the point I'm trying to determine whether my CD will have to be labeled "Explicit Lyrics" if said certain word is not bleeped out.

In other songs I've bleeped out the F-word and the S-word but I've left in words like "damn" and "ass" figuring if they're in the Bible, Tipper Gore can't storm my house and start slapping labels on me. And I actually think bleeping is can be funnier than actually hearing the word, like South Park on T.V., it's kind of hilarious that 9-year-olds need to be censored.

But in the song in question, I use the B-word 25 times, and 25 bleeps in one song might be a little much. Adding to the problem is the fact that the B-word can be a touchy subject. On the side of not bleeping is the argument that of the 25 times I use the word in the song, 24 times the word is used as a verb, meaning "to complain." The one time it's used as a noun it's said that someone is "going to be a b**ch" not that someone is a b**ch. And in this instance I think it's basically the female version of "a-hole," a word which appears elsewhere on the album in the abbreviated "a-hole" form.

There aren't good guidelines to what should be labeled explicit and what gets a pass. Meredith Brooks has an album from which the biggest hit was a song named "B**ch" and on iTunes there's no explicit language tag. On Goat's Head Soup The Rolling Stones have a song innocuously named "Star Star," the chorus of which uses the work "f***er" 12 times, and with three choruses in the song the f-word count is at least 36. That's way more profanity and sexual content than Green Day, which is always labeled "explicit."

So I'm leaning towards letting it go and not telling iTunes to label it and then dealing with any angry parents who may be upset that their kids heard language on my CD that they can hear pretty much all day on T.V.

But then there's the inherent hilarity of the bleep.

Such are the decisions in a D.I.Y. record project. I tell ya, it's a real bitch.

Buy This Book!

2009-07-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

A good friend of mine, Bob Powers, who's a hilarious (an hilarious?) author has a new book out this week, The Horrible Temp-to-Perm Debacle, the latest in his Just Make a Choice series in which you get to make the decisions for an indecisive slacker, this time an alcoholic temp framed for murder.

Will you end up in jail? On the run? Working full time for the man? It's all up to you and each choice will lead to eff-in funny consequences.

Bob's last book, You Are a Miserable Excuse For a Hero, was a big hit and his first book, Happy Cruelty Day, based on his Girls Are Pretty blog, is a must have for the coffee table or guest bathroom.

So if you want some good hearty laughs this summer, buy this book!

The excesses of a Rock and Roll Lifestyle--TWO Tambourines!!

2009-07-06T09:33:00.000-07:00

Last week I was working on my new CD (coming this fall! new tunes! available on line!) and it came time to lay down the all-important tambourine track. I was pretty sure I had a tambourine somewhere but in the many cleanups and rearrangements of stuff in my (recording) studio apartment I just lost track of it.

I simply had no luck finding an existing tambourine in my apartment, and the track had to be recorded--you can't not have tambourine in a pop song--so I went out and got the spiffy new round maple tambourine seen above on the left.

As you can probably guess, as soon as I got home with the new tambourine I had one last idea of where a previous tambourine might be stashed--with some P.A. equipment I hadn't thought about since an unpleasant, non-tambourine-related gig down at Princeton. Sure enough, within minutes of returning home with a new tambourine I found the old one. Now I had two.

Of course, I could return the new one but that would be sensible, practical, pragmatic even. So not rock and roll. I should have twelve tambourines! I should have a lead and rhythm tambourine! I should have alto, tenor, and barritone tambourines in an entire tambourine section!

And besides, I like the sound of the new, old-style tambourine better. It's got a tighter jingle with a less ringy finish. It's Motown by way of the Carpenters which makes it pretty perfect for a goofball like me. Listen for it on the new CD! (out in early September, stay tuned!)

Hey, Todd Palin...

2009-06-11T09:50:00.001-07:00

don't you think Letterman's joke about one of your daughters getting knocked up was probably about Bristol, one of your daughters who was actually knocked up and is now an unwed, teenage mother?

And to go from a joke that talks about being knocked up to using the word 'rape' is a little extreme, don't you think? You do realize that conception can happen during consensual sex too, don't you?

In short, take it easy, grandpa.

If they don't know then who knows?

2009-06-02T22:35:00.000-07:00

Watching the tube tonight I saw a commercial for the anti-depression drug Prestiq. Now we all know that those side-effect warnings on prescription drug commercials can get pretty ridiculous, but this commerical gets ridiculous long before they even get to the side effects.

About 27 seconds in, right after they say that it's been proven effective in treating depression, the voice-over slips in this little gem:

Prestiq is thought to work by affecting the levels of two chemicals in the brain...

Thought to work? Are you seriously trying to sell me a drug and you don't even know how it works?

I don't care how you think it works, if you don't know how it works maybe I should hold off on putting it in my body until you do.

Hell, I think bourbon works by activating the Debonair receptors of my brain thus making me look and act like Don Draper, but if I were trying to sell bourbon I think I would keep that theory to myself.

If you want to sell something and you don't know exactly what it does or why, just hire the Sham-Wow guy.

I'm on Keith and the Girl live Friday night!

2009-05-21T12:02:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone,

I'm going to be a guest on the very popular Keith and the Girl podcast tomorrow night! You can listen live anywhere in the world, or download the episode to listen at a less-in-the-middle-of-the-night hour.

You can also watch the video feed live and interact with the show via their message boards, IM, twitter, and even the magical telephone!

It's Friday night at midnight New York City time,
9 pm Friday on the West Coast of the U.S.
4am Saturday GMT,
5am British Summer Time,
and 2pm Saturday afternoon on the east coast of Australia (I think).

Check it out, it's a fun show!

Keith and the Girl

Sometimes it's better not to headline...

2009-04-25T15:46:00.000-07:00

With headlining goes the glory of the show. You're name is on the marquee and you're the one people are there to see. On the flipside of that is that if the show isn't a success the blames falls on you, whether it's deserved or not.

I pondered this tonight while waiting for my dish to arrive at the restaurant here in Durham, NH before my show tonight at UNH, where I'm opening for Adam Ferrara. I did a google search on my name and the the school's name to see if they had done any promo and this article from The New Hampshire, the UNH student newspaper, came up.

Here's a gem of a sentence buried about 7 paragraphs in:

However, most students had never heard of him [Adam Ferrara], and said they don't plan on attending Saturday night's festivities.

Nice. I'm glad the writer didn't ask the student about me.

"What do you think of the Pachelbel comic guy who's opening the show?" "The Pachelbel dude? F. that guy."

Besides the great buzz this article is sure to generate, it's 80-some degrees and sunny today so I don't know how many people are going to be in the mood for a comedy show. All across campus and in town people are out and about, and a general giddiness is in the air thanks to the early preview of summer weather.

But I'm still psyched to be doing the show. It's a beautiful day to be in New England, I'm opening for a big name, and after my set I can sit back and enjoy the show because I get the night off from headlining. Cool.

My Dalliance With the Theater

2009-03-25T12:41:00.000-07:00

As I slowly recover from the hectic few weeks of the one-act festival my play was in (and made it to the finals of!), I want to make sure I take the time to express my immense gratitude for the great job and hard work put in by my cast. From left to right: Noel Dinneen, Nikki Van Cassele, Matt Klan(e), Jennifer Spragg, and there's me on the right. We did 7 performances in 17 days, with 48 hours notice for our first Round 2 performance, and 14 hours notice for the finals, which involved two shows this past Sunday, the first of which started at 11 am.

Yeah, I didn't know there was an 11 am on Sunday either.

It was a great experience putting this show up and I had a blast working with such a talented cast. And since the play is about a bunch of mid-level corporate types who've all just gotten fired, I was glad we could stage it in a timely manner. The audience response was wonderful (except for the last show where they just looked confused, perhaps it was too much business jargon for a Sunday afternoon crowd) and the feedback we received was really positive.

It was interesting though seeing some of the differences between the standup world and the theater world. The biggest I noticed was dealing with time. In the standup world you stick to your time or you're not considered a professional. When there's a showcase or festival, time is strictly regulated: a red light in the back of the room flips on when you have one minute left in your set, and it starts to blink when your time is up. If you go over your time by two or more minutes, they cut the mic and the lights. In other words, you get your ass off stage on time.

Now I understand there's got to be a little more leeway in the theater world--a cast can't spontaneously edit their piece the way a standup can--so a few minutes grace is to be expected. But man, oh man, there were some pieces that were consistently over a half hour long in a festival where the time limit was 20 minutes.

Perhaps it's just my years in the standup world that have turned this into a pet peeve of mine, and I won't get too worked up about it because the slight inconvenience in no way takes away from the great experience I had with those wonderful people in the photo above.

So Thank You cast of Blowing Bubbles! And a hearty Thank You to everyone that was able to make it out to see the show! You helped make it the success that it was.

Thanks for helping us get to Round 2!

2009-03-15T22:23:00.000-07:00

I just found out that my play, Blowing Bubbles, made it to Round 2 of The Network's One-Act Festival!

Thank you to everyone who came out to see it in Round 1, and if you're in the NYC area and didn't get a chance to see it, there are two performances coming up this week in Round 2!

And if you did see it, we'd love to have you back because audience votes are combined with the votes of a panel of judges this round, so not only do you count as 50% of the decision, your laughter and support will definitely have an impact on the judges as well.

Blowing Bubbles
a new one-act by Rob Paravonian
part of The Network's One-Act Festival

starring Noel Dinneen, Matt Klan, Jennifer Spragg and Nikki Van Cassele

Tuesday, March 17, 9:00 pm
Friday, March 20, 8:30 pm

The Barrow Group Theater
312 W. 36th St. (between 8th & 9th Ave)
New York, NY
reservations highly recommended, call 212-563-3770
or purchase at SmartTix.com

The Dead Montage Is Dead To Me

2009-02-23T14:54:00.000-08:00

I tried to avoid the Oscars again this year but I couldn't because it shows up in places you wouldn't expect: punk clubs, bowling alleys, laundromats. But I'll usually wade through the second half of the Oscarcast™ because I love the Dead Montage, the part of the show where they show clips of the people that have died in the past year and the audience applauds in accordance with how important they think the person was.

Well this year they couldn't even get the Dead Montage right. I mean, how hard could it be to put together? You get a list of the people that died, assemble some clips of their best-known work, put their name on the screen and then show it with a nice, moving musical score provided by the Symphony Oscarstra™.

Nope, they thought it would be a good idea to have a live singer on stage to pull focus with a ballad. Add to that the fact that the live singer was Queen Latifah who for fifteen years was a rapper, talk show host, sit-com actress, and released the first album she sung on the same year Avril Levigne released her second.

What's worse is that for the Dead Montage segment of the show they kind of forgot to feature the actual montage. They showed the montage on large monitors on stage and then shot the monitors from across the damn room so you couldn't even read some of the names of the people featured.

Show the f-ing dead people full screen and let me figure out how important they are by how much applause they're getting, dammit! That's the whole point of the Dead Montage in the first place!

Who is that? Ricardo Montleban? I don't know! Did they show Khan? Who can tell? They're shooting the freaking monitor from a crane 200 feet away!

And though there's always omissions I thought it was pretty glaring to omit George Carlin. Granted he wasn't a big movie star, but anyone who was in both Car Wash and Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure deserves to be somewhere between a couple of producers I've never heard of. He was Fillmore in Cars for crying out loud!

To make my point to the Academy in a way they can understand: I'm going to project this post onto a wall, videotape it with my webcam and then post the video on YouTube.

And finally, KHAAAAAN!!!!

I've been Huffington Posted!

2009-02-03T16:17:00.000-08:00

The folks over at Huffington Post via a site called Kontraband.mobi have reposted my Friends/Sugar Ray bit from YouTube, which is pretty dang cool.

Check it out!

Though I'm not sure what 'prankies' are. Anyone?

Ice, Ice, Baby

2009-01-30T10:27:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of my car right after I got to the hotel in Schenectady after driving through Wednesday's ice storm. By the time I got into town it was pretty much a rolling ice cube, but these are the perils we face to entertain our audiences.

It reminds me of that U.S. Post Office motto, which I just had to look up: "Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat nor gloom of night..."?

Really? "Gloom of night" is in there? How did gloom of night get up there with snow and rain? Was gloom of night a viable threat at one point?

"Attention passengers, our overnight flight to Los Angeles has been cancelled. It's just too gloomy out there."

Heck, we comedians do our best work in the gloom of night. It's our friend. It's that early morning sun that scares us.

P.S. Thanks to the folks at Union College, the show was a ton of fun!

I KNEW it! Obama administration starts with pack of LIES!

2009-01-22T22:41:00.001-08:00

So the AP says the music that the quartet played at the inauguration was canned, i.e. pre-recorded. IS THERE NO END TO GOVERNMENT DECEPTION?!?

I knew it. Deep down in my bones. Being a former cellist the first thing I said when I saw the quartet playing at the inauguration was "it's too damned cold to be playing stringed instruments outside." Even if your fingers don't go numb there's no way to keep the dang things in tune.

I once played an outdoor gig in 50 degree weather and could barely knuckle through Johnny B. Goode on the bass, so I knew something was amiss.

But hey, I figured, it's Yo-Yo Ma, he's the most famous cellist of his day. He can do it. He probably has high-tech outdoor climate control technology, keeping his performance area at optimal temperature and humidity levels at all times.

Turns out they used the same technology the Pussy Cat Dolls use in concert, a freakin' record player.

Damn, just when I was finally becoming undisillusioned.

A Non-Smoker's V-Chip?

2009-01-19T12:33:00.000-08:00

I wish there were some way I could explain to my T.V. that I'm not a smoker because I'm getting pretty tired of the escalating grossness of anti-smoking ads.

The most recent offender is an ad in which they snake a video camera down into the lungs of someone with lung cancer, giving us the viewer an up close and personal look at the patient's tumors.

Thanks. I'm trying to enjoy a football game with my friends and now I'm about to hurl into the spinach and avocado dip.

But I'm not, and never have been, a smoker, and I'd like to not put up with this public service overkill. So I'm going to invent a non-smoker's V-chip I can install in my T.V. so when these ads come on I'll get instead ads for Doritos, or beer, or something else that can kill me legally.

For Christmas (or Hanukah or something else), why not a song about cheap furniture?

2008-12-23T13:36:00.001-08:00

A lot of people have asked me to post this song but I couldn't because it was from a Comedy Central show. Well, now the good folks at Comedy Central have done my work for me by starting the new site jokes.com and putting up a lot of material from their archives.

Enjoy!

P.S. This is what I look like in a suit!

Jokes.com

Rob Paravonian - Particle Board Song

If you're in the little room when another comic is an the ballroom... you might not be a redneck

2008-12-11T00:13:00.000-08:00

I'm beginning weekend number two in the Chicago 'burbs, performing at the Zanies in St. Charles (last weekend I was perilously close to my hometown while at the Zanies in Vernon Hills) and I was told that Friday night's crowd might be a little light. It seems that while I'm going to be playing the comedy club at the Pheasant Run Resort, Jeff Foxworthy will be performing in the 3,500-seat theater in the same complex.

Will there be enough comedy fans in DuPage county to support two shows? Will our shows be filled with people who couldn't get tickets for Foxworthy and settled for us? Will the weather warm above 18 degrees so I can take advantatge of the links the resort has to offer or will the cold force me to sit in my room and be tempted by the minibar?

At any rate, it's been fun to be in the homeland. I had a blast headlining last weekend at Vernon Hills, especially since some of my high school classmates showed up and I had a chance to briefly catch up with some of them.

It can also feel like a family function at times. I actually got an "I haven't seen you since you were this tall," with a hand that came up to about mid-chest on me. Who knew I would have grown a foot and a half in 20 years?

I'm looking forward to a fun weekend though, and I'm going to do my best to sneak into the Foxworthy show. At $150 per ticket I dang sure can't afford to pay. Hmm. I wonder if that would make me a redneck?

Can we get a ruling on that?

A crescent Moon, Venus, and Jupiter walked into a bar...

2008-12-01T15:02:00.000-08:00

I just saw tonight's moon, with Jupiter and Venus close by. I thought it was pretty cool to be able to see all of them so close together from Brooklyn with the naked eye.

Then when I realized my eye's nakedness I ran home in shame.

Thank you, Genesis!

(the book, not the band)

Don't buy your iPhone on the subway

2008-11-24T09:14:00.000-08:00

Woohoo! Just got a new iPhone! Shouldn't have bought it on the subway though.

The guy said it was an older model but this is ridiculous.

My biggest fear on election day

2008-11-04T07:39:00.000-08:00

This election season has been long and annoying, but it will (hopefully) be over by tonight, or tomorrow morning. Some people are afraid that Obama will win, others are afraid McCain will win, but my deep, dark fear is that the winner will be, somehow, Bush.

Sure, he isn't running and term limits make another 4 years unconstitutional, but since when has Bush cared (or even known) what the Constitution says?

I'm afraid that somewhere, somehow, someone slipped an obscure provision into some unrelated bill, like they did with the U.S. attorneys and the Patriot Act, and it not only says that Bush can get another 4 years, but that he's already sworn in until 2016.

But I did vote because today, I'm the decider.

I hope.

Update:

My patriotic video just went up on Salon.com! Woo!

Between 236.com and Salon it's been posted on two of my fave sites!

A patriotic video

2008-10-28T21:54:00.001-07:00

Here's a video of a patriotic song I wrote for the pro-America parts of America. Hope you like it!

New Video Posted (though it's a bit different)

2008-10-18T11:41:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone,

I just posted a new video on YouTube, but it's a little different than the others. It's a satirical educational song about presidential signing statements, complete with a George W. Bush action figure. I know, a bit odd.

Anyway, I hope you like it. I hope to post some new standup clips and maybe a new ep of my podcast soon too.

Til then, rock on.

Joe Six Pack Inspired by Palin Speech

2008-10-03T09:25:00.000-07:00

First of all, did she really use the term "Joe Six Pack"? Am I watching a real-life version of the Simpsons episode when Mr. Burns ran for governor and was trying to paint himself as a populist? Is she going to throw in "Johnny Lunch Pail" and "Eddie Punch Clock" next? Does she own a nuclear plant?

Here's what she said, regarding how to avoid an economic calamity in the future:

"...let's commit ourselves just every day American people, Joe Six Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again. Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing our money and loaning us these dollars. We need to make sure that we demand from the federal government strict oversight of those entities in charge of our investments and our savings..."

As a middle-class American who enjoys the occasional beer, a Joe Six Pack if you will, I am inspired by Governor Palin and propose we all take this oath:

"I, Joe Six Pack, promise to never again be part of an economy that allows investment banks to sell mortgage-backed securities as AAA-rated investments. I promise that the next time the SEC has a quick meeting about letting the big investment banks raise their debt limit, a meeting that's not covered by any media outlets, I will somehow find out about it, punch out of work, drive to Washington and shout "No more!"

"I promise that between beers I will get an MBA and start analyzing the balance sheets of corporate America in order to see if they're hiding risky debt somewhere in outside special purpose entities, and I affirm that I will learn the identities of all of Washington's thousands of lobbyists and keep an eye on how much influence they have in the halls of government.

"I promise all of this because I am a patriotic American and apparently none of my elected officials nor their appointees thinks it's their job."

There. That should do it.

Now if there's a hockey mom out there who can come up with a similar oath for her people I think this country will be right back on track.

Thank you Ms. Palin!

The Problem With Monday Night Football (and therefore America)

2008-09-09T10:40:00.000-07:00

Television play-by-play is dead. We've skipped the description of the game and gone straight to the analysis. We've replaced the one neutral observer and one color commentator formula with a setup involving three opinionators fighting for mic time. This was painfully evident in last night's Monday Night Football double header as we had three talking heads in the booth of each game, each trying to out-snark and out-opine each other.

For example, during the late 4th quarter of the Green Bay-Minnesota game there was an interception that sealed it for the Packers, and instead of describing what was going on while it was going on we heard commentators chiming in with "just go down, Atari [the players first name, not a game console] nothing good can come from this." All through the first half we were treated to confronting opinions on what should be happening while other things were actually happening, along with constant bickering and laughing when things either worked out of fell apart.

During the Denver-Oakland game I actually heard two different commentators say "nice pass" while the play was going on, no one mentioning the fact that the receiver was still on his feet nearing the goal line.

This is all great for the sports talk shows that make a living on having two or more blowhards argue about meaningless crap. "Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback in the league," or "is Brett Favre still Brett Favre or is he Joe Montana on the Chiefs?" What? But if the game is actually going on either tell me what's happening or shut the F up.

You could say that since the game is on t.v. we don't need play by play at all because we can see what's happening, and that's a valid argument. But if so then save the analysis and arguing for the replay and pipe down during the ten seconds while things are actually happening. If I want to hear annoying chatter while the game is going on I'll watch it in a bar with a bunch of drunks (which I do regularly).

Perhaps it's a little silly to be the only one annoyed that for every fact reported on t.v. there are 40 opinions trying to tell me what to think about that fact.

Maybe I'm just cranky thinking it's a problem that in order to get ratings networks replace reporting with arguments and people yelling at cross purposes, taking journalism to the level of the Jerry Springer Show or Jenny Jones.

I mean, what would happen if instead of reporting facts altogether we just put a bunch of people on t.v. who argued and passed off their opinions as relevant?

Oh, that's right, we'd get a lot stupider and the world would go to hell.

Good thing it's only football.

My Time In Edinburgh

2008-08-20T14:22:00.000-07:00

I'm back in NYC after my stint in Edinburgh, slowly recovering from jet lag, and the exchange rate. The week of shows I did were a ton (sorry, tonne) of fun, and it was great to see the famous Fringe Festival (along with the 387 other concurrent festivals) up close and personal.

As my first-ever shows in the U.K., I was excited to see that my material played well on the other side of the Atlantic, and that funny is funny. Especially gratifying was my guest spot in the Liar show, where I not only told a story sans guitar and got solid laughs, I got to meet and perform with some British-based comedians.

All in all, a pretty damn good trip. I hope to get back in the near future to do a more extensive run through the U.K. and possibly Europe, and maybe a full-blown show in the Fringe at some point too...

So here are some pics from my adventure in Harry Potter/Jeckyl & Hyde land. To the left I'm standing in front of the Craggs, the remnants of a defunct volcano that overlooks the city. The peak below is Arthur's Seat in Holyrood Park and that little winding trail going up the middle is what I hiked up to check out the view.
And finally, the pic from the top, just to prove I made it.

The border agents on the way out weren't quite as hostile as the ones on the way in, though the woman at Heathrow did confiscate a pair needlenose pliers from my guitar case. I thought about explaining to her that I had already taken the pliers on three previous flights to and through the U.K. but figured I should just be happy she wasn't asking for any paperwork and settle for getting back to my home country without too much hassle.

Now it's time to go into Scottish food detox so I can be ready for the fall season. Seriously, deep-fried sausages?

A couple of podcasts from the Fringe

2008-08-10T06:28:00.000-07:00

While here in Edinburgh doing my show with Liam at the Meadow Bar I've been fortunate enough to get invited to perform in some other shows. I'm doing Liar tonight at the Belly Laugh stage at the Underbelly Cowgate, and yesterday I did a couple of songs at Sowerby & Luff's Sex Tips for Pandas show, which is now available as a podcast.

After the show they interviewed me about my Edinburgh experience thus far for the official Fringe podcast, which should be available here.

And it's actually sunny right now (Rob says, crossing his fingers, knocking on wood and generally looking out for lightning and such)!

I'd like to actually say "it's raining" without someone responding with, "welcome to Scotland." It's like in New York, no one ever says "welcome to New York" after something good happens. It's always, "I just got pushed off of a subway train!" "Welcome to New York!"

That doesn't make me feel welcome at all.

Today's crowd was great. It's so cool that people are coming out for a show at noon, especially in a town where the bars are open till 5 in the morning.

Well, maybe they were actually still here from the bar the night before...

Either way, they were awesome and I'm having a blast doing the shows here. Hopefully I'll get some video of it up soon.

Rob P (the imposter)'s U.K. Debut

2008-08-08T11:58:00.001-07:00

My illustrious U.K. debut was actually postponed by a day because the first set I was scheduled to do got bumped. In the country one day and already I was bumped. Yikes. But I'll be doing that show again (hopefully) on Sunday so it's all good.

May actual debut was Thursday at noon (7 am New York time) and it was a lot of fun, even though I still wasn't quite adjusted time-wise. The day before, Liam got a great write-up in the Scotsman, the daily newspaper here, and it's definitely brought people in the last couple of days. The only odd thing for me was that the review raved about the woman who was on the bill with him the first few days of the fest, Ophira Eisenberg.

She's a friend of mine and I was really excited about her review, my only worry is that now people may be coming expecting a hilarious Canadian woman and in her place is an (equally) hilarious American guy playing the guitar.

So far no one has complained, and the shows have gone really well. Thursday was a smaller crowd of about a dozen very supportive folks, and today was almost full, and as I was walking around the streets of Edinburgh I even got recognized by someone who was at the show, which is now small feat considering there are a couple thousand shows and tens of thousands of people here to see them.

So things are improving much since I managed to make it through customs. For my trip out I'm picturing a Midnight Express-type scene of me beings stopped by the police on the tarmac and having them discover contraband comedy taped to my chest.

British women must hate me...

2008-08-06T04:05:00.000-07:00

I'm sure it's a coincidence, but in the last two weeks of international travel the two rudest people I've met have been British women. First was the hotel clerk in Belize and in a close second the woman at passport control yesterday at Heathrow.

It started out normally enough. She asked me where I was headed. Edinburgh. Purpose? The festival. How long would I be staying there? 10 days.

This was all perfectly curt and proper. Then she asked for my return ticket.

"I don't have it printed out yet."

"Why not?"

"It's an electronic ticket," I say, thinking that would explain it. It doesn't. I add, "I have the flight number and date, do you want that?"

"You don't have anything printed out?"

"It's an electronic ticket," I restate. It's all I can muster to explain my lack of a printout. Weren't electronic tickets created specifically to eliminate the need to have a piece of paper in your hand?

She stares.

"No one told me I needed to print out my return ticket."

"No one should have to tell you, it's common sense."

Common sense? To print out a boarding card for a flight ten days from now? Not buying it.

"I've never had to print out a return ticket before."

"Well you're traveling internationally and it's common sense."

There's that common sense argument again.

I counter with, "I just went to Belize last week and I didn't need to have my return ticket printed out." Which is in fact true, and last time I checked U.S. to Belize is 'international.'

"You're in the U.K." she says emphatically.

"Really?"

See what happens? You treat me like I'm stupid and you get sarcasm.

Neither one of us says anything for a moment.

Finally she asks, "do you have the information on where you'll be staying?"

"Yes, a hotel in Edinburgh. I have the confirmation number."

I dig into my bag and pull out my calendar. I open it up and look at today's date where I've written down my hotel info.

"You just have it written down?"

"Yeah."

"You don't have anything printed?"
Again with the printing! How is something I print out at home better than a confirmation number I have written down? Is my HP inkjet printer now capable of printing official international documents? (mental note, print up some Swiss bonds when I get home).

"Well, I didn't know and I don't have a ticket printed so where can we go from here?"

"There's no where to go, I have nothing to show how long you're going to be staying or when you'll be leaving."

Believe me, I won't stay in this country any longer than I have to if this is an example of British charm. At this point I think I may actually be denied entry into the U.K.

"Is there internet service here so I can go online and get what you need?"

"There is but it's in the terminal."

"How else could get you the documentation you want, maybe I could go to the American Airlines counter and have them print out my return itinerary?"

She stammers at my offers to resolve the situation, which makes me think this is more about making me feel uncomfortable than enforcing a strict You Must Hve Printouts rule.

She shakes her head and stamps my passport.

"Thank you," I say. But, still aggravated by the experience I add, "if it's my first time traveling in the U.K. then it's not common sense to know what you need here."

"That's a matter of opinion," she says haughtily.

"Well, thank you for sharing your opinion," I say mostly to myself as I pick up my bags.

"Your most welcome" she throws back at me as I zig-zag through the maze of stanchions to the next stop in the gauntlet of international travel, all of which were a lot easier than her.

Perhaps she radioed ahead, "stupid American coming through. He doesn't have anything printed out! Watch it! "

At least she didn't ask about the 3 kilos of hash I had stashed in my suitcase.

Preparing for Scotland in Central America

2008-08-04T08:19:00.000-07:00

I needed to prepare for my trip to Edinburgh so I decided to go to the place where Americans always train covertly for missions: Central America.

O.K. Maybe I just wanted to cash in some frequent flyer miles and hit a coral reef for a while so I went to Belize, but I'm starting to think scheduling a Caribbean excursion two days before I head to Scotland where it's going to be a balmy 61 degrees F and rainy wasn't a good idea.

Also, going from a place where the currency is 2:1 in favor of the dollar to a place where it's 1:2 the other way around is going to be tough.

"Five pounds? Sure I can afford two of tho... Oh wait, I need a loan."

Edinburgh's going to be a blast though, if you can make it out to one of the shows, get your kilt on and come on up!

Rob P. @ Meadow Bar
August 7-13
noon-1pm
42-44 Buccleuch St.

False Sense of Accomplishment

2008-07-22T20:04:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I spent an uncomfortable amount of hours in front of my computer thanks to a hard drive failing. Luckily enough it had an extended death scene, like a good guy in an action movie (the good guys take forever to die, the whole battle or fight or whatever gets put on hold so they can have their scene while the bad guys always die instantly... except of course for the main bad guy who looks dead but comes back for one last scare...)

Tangent. Sorry.

My point is, I had time to back up data and such, so I bought a new internal drive, cloned the old drive, booted it up and proceeded to pat myself on the back.

I decided to go through the applications I use most often to see if they were all working properly. Browsers? Check. Email? after importing some settings, check. InDesign? Check.

Photoshop? No check.

No problem, I'll just reinstall it.

No check. The Photoshop installer won't run.

How about Microsoft Word? No dice, and a reinstall didn't improve my situation vis a vis the dice.

I log into my backup account and both Photoshop and Word work, indicating it's probably a user problem, a permissions problem, or maybe I didn't burn enough sage before starting.

Well, here's where it gets fuzzy: at some point, after two dozen restarts holding down various keys to clear various things, I get nothing but text. I have crossed over into something called "single user mode" which people have tried to convince me is a very advanced Unix environment but to me looks like D.O.S. circa 1982.

My brain hurts at this point, my vision is blurred. Perhaps I've gone back in time. I'm having anxiety attacks thinking I need to run numbers on Lotus 1-2-3 and recover my Wordperfect file on what Reagan's first year in office means to me.

I can't get the command line to cooperate with me, I even typed in "I command thee to restart!" Nada.

This means it's time to reinstall system software, which I can't help but think is like lobotomizing my poor computer. But I gotta do it. It's for its own good.

Lobotomy successful, the computer comes to. At least, the main drive does. My second drive, with an older operating system which I need to run Pro Tools because they haven't updated their software yet, is inaccessible. It keeps telling me I don't have permission to access it.

I don't have permission? It's my bloody drive! If I don't have permission, who does?

After three long days at 6-8 hours per day, I get everything up and running (mostly) and I do a victory dance. In the middle of my dance I realize that I'm only celebrating getting back to where I was before all of these problems happened and I haven't actually accomplished any of the crap I needed to accomplish: last minute travel arrangements for my Edinburgh trip, flyers for my shows at the fringe, updating sites, sending out a newsletter...

...which I guess I'm not doing now either because I'm blogging, but oh well. I'll put this in the 'updating websites' category.

Very sad news

2008-06-23T10:58:00.000-07:00

As many of you have probably heard, George Carlin passed away yesterday, which has sent waves of sadness through the comedy community. The biggest thrill in my career was opening shows for him over the past several months and getting the chance to meet, work with and talk to a comedy legend.

He and the people he worked with treated me and each other like family and I always felt welcome and taken care of. Though it did take me about 10 shows to work up the nerve to ask to get this picture with him. His manager took the camera, George put his arm around my shoulder and said, "ah, couple-a assholes." I couldn't have been happier (though you'd never know it from my stupid expression because I was explaining which button on the camera was the shutter. I totally choked).

I know I share my sadness with fans and performers around the world, and I hope we can continue his spirit of questioning, challenging, and calling out the stupid shit we do on a a daily basis in politics, religion, and everyday life.

Really funny book

2008-06-05T18:45:00.001-07:00

My friend has a new book out and it's really, really funny. I went to the book release party on Tuesday and he did a reading and it was hilarious. If you're looking for a read that will deliver a lot of laughs this summer, I highly recommend checking it out.

It's called You're a Miserable Excuse for a Hero and it's in the style of those Choose Your Own Adventure books we used to read in grade school, but it's written to someone in his early thirties who's "done everything [he] can to commit to nothing for fear of limiting [his] options."

There are 30-some-odd possible endings and it's hysterical. The author, Bob Powers, is one of my favorite writers and is the guy behind Happy Cruelty Day! Daily Celebrations of Quiet Desperation.

Happy June, everyone!

P.S., here are links to the book at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Thanks NYC folks!

2008-05-05T11:20:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to say a quick 'thank you' to all the people that came to my show here in NYC on May 1st! It was a lot of fun and there were several new faces in the crowd.

The venue was a little odd though, in that we were in the basement lounge of one of the few bars in NYC that allows smoking thanks to it being a hookah bar. Yep, along with your drinks you can order a hookah pipe and various blends of tobacco. Also, the folks upstairs apparently don't talk to the people running the music venue downstairs because the bartenders and doormen weren't too helpful when my crowd came in looking for the show. They just kind of gave off that East Village attitude in which they act like somehow the patrons of their own bar are inconveniencing them.

I guess it's all part of the New York experience, and it didn't take away from the show. We had a great time in our cozy little music spot and I should have some live shots to post soon. And now that I'm finally off of the road for a while I'm going to be able to work on some new videos. Finally! Woo!

I hope to do another NYC headlining event this summer so stay tuned.

As for the rest of you, look for me this spring and summer in:

Salt Lake City; May 16
El Paso, TX May 17
Anaheim, CA May 18

Santa Barbara, CA June 12
Visalia, CA June 19
San Francisco, June 24

San Diego, CA July 20
Saratoga, CA July 21

Edinburgh, UK Aug 6-13 (details posted soon)

info for the rest of my shows should be at my website.

Woo Hoo! A critic's pick in Time Out New York!

2008-04-29T22:22:00.000-07:00

Yeah! I just found out my show on Thursday in New York is a "Critic's Pick" in this week's Time Out New York!

Thank you Time Out New York, I won't let you down!

There are still some tickets available online, get yours here.

How to waste a ton of time with grammatical questions

2008-04-15T13:43:00.000-07:00

At the airport this morning, when looking for WiFi to check my email, I got this message on my screen:

"None of your preferred networks are available."

Which led me to click my tongue at the screen. My dad had always enforced a None Is Singular rule in our house growing up, and since he was a teacher and a strict grammarian I followed suit.

In order to vet my judgement, I looked up the word in the dictionary (or, more accurately, my dictionary widget) and found out that according to the Oxford American Dictionary's usage paragraph, 'none' can take either a singular or plural verb, depending on the 'context and emphasis needed.'

Well, that's just no way to please a grammar nerd, we need rules! That's what helps to give order to this chaotic amalgam of a language, and by extension, our lives!

So then I googled the subject. As with every argument under the sun, there are extensive discussions online about whether or not 'none' should be singular or plural. There are posts favoring each side, some informed and reasoned, some angry and vitriolic. I read all of these, all the while knowing that the answer is 'both' but hoping that someone could make a convincing argument one way or another.

And this is why I can't get a smart phone. There are times when internet access is bad, and wasting 20 minutes of daylight on a grammar discussion is one of them. The sun is shining, I need to go outside.

Right after I check my myspace.

I'm surprised they had enough letters!

2008-03-20T12:32:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday night I performed in Boston opening up for George Carlin, and much to my surprise my name was on the marquee! It's even spelled correctly using all the same size letters! Usually they end up having to use a sideways 'Z' or a zero as an 'O' or something.

And yes, the name of the venue is the Wang Theater, and I'm proud to say I refrained from any juvenile "wang" jokes during my set.

Afterwards, however, was a different story: "The Wang was a lot bigger than I expected" or "tonight I had great success at the Wang," and so forth.

Jokes aside, it was an awesome show. The place holds 3,600 people and it was packed. I've never performed for a crowd that big before, and Boston was generally buzzing being the weekend before St. Patrick's Day. It was the highlight of an already great weekend opening for Carlin in Bridgeport, Foxwoods Casino, and Kingston, NY. More dates with him are coming in, including Salt Lake City, Anaheim, Reno, and others. I'll post when all the details come in.

Thanks to all that have stopped by the site and my myspace page after seeing the shows, especially to those who enjoyed my Wang performance (he he).

Don't read this post if you're lactose intolerant!

2008-02-26T10:59:00.000-08:00

It's Salem Sue, billed as the World's Largest Holstein Cow.

Personally I think they should bill it as "The World's Largest Statue of a Holstein Cow" because when I got close and saw she wasn't moving, I became a little alarmed. I mean it was 20 below here last week.

Good times in North Dakota.

I finally found a way to avoid the Oscars!

2008-02-24T16:07:00.000-08:00

Every year I try to get away from the Oscarcast™, and every year I fail. It all started when I realized I can't go to Oscar parties without getting pissed off at the one person there who's so into the show she shushes people every 10 seconds. It's a freakin' 'party', I came here to see my friends, not sit in rapt attention listening to what Julia Roberts thinks about her life.

My opinion is if you need to hear every word of the show, don't go to an Oscar party, sit at home and watch it with your cats. That's like watching the Superbowl and sushing everyone after a big play because you want to hear Joe Buck and Troy Aikman's commentary on it. But I realize I'm in the minority, because every time I forget I'm not an Oscar party guy and go to one, I end up having to leave after the third or fourth shush.

So I've tried to go to bars, but the bars will end up playing the show. And I don't mean just showing it on the t.v. in the background, they inevitably turn up the sound. Bartenders and waitresses are usually actors after all, and watching the show somehow helps them forget they're working as bartenders and waitresses. Even my friend's crazy, anti-L.A. bar in L.A. had it on one year when I was out there during Oscar weekend. And is was a place that prides itself on serving Schlitz in 16 oz. cans. Who would have thought?

I guess I could sit at home and read, but that's where my discipline is at fault. I'll usually flip on the t.v. hoping to find something to watch for an hour or two, and since it's Oscar night no other networks put anything good on. I'll tune in telling myself "I should see what the host's jokes are" or something to make me think it's somehow my business, but I'll end up watching most of the show and then feel like I've wasted a night of the precious gift of life.

But this year I accidentally stumbled upon a foolproof solution, as I'm writing this post from the United terminal of Denver International Airport, stuck in a long layover before my flight to Bismarck, ND. So all you have to do to avoid the Oscars is book a flight to the middle of nowhere, and then sit and enjoy the comforts of flying the aggravated and cramped skies.

Seriously, the flight in was one of the most uncomfortable planes I've ever been on, and I've flown in C-17s. But on the upside, no Oscars.

The Clinton Plagiarism Charge-- A Comedian's Perspective

2008-02-18T19:09:00.001-08:00

I usually don't get too political here on my blog, but I think as someone who works both in a spoken medium and in a field where plagiarism is a serious charge I have some insight into the situation, so I thought I'd share my thoughts on Senator Clinton's recent accusation of plagiarism on the part of Senator Obama.

First of all, in the world of standup comedy we eschew the snooty, academic term of 'plagiarism' and just plain call it 'stealing,' and, with a few notable exceptions, a reputation as a joke thief is career death.

And due to the seriousness of the charge, accusations of joke theivery are soberly deliberated among comedians before we label someone a thief. Often it is determined that comedians came up with similar jokes independent of each other. The more common and obvious the joke, the less likely an accusation of stealing is going to stick. If a comic says "Joey Donut's a thief because he does a bit about his wife nagging him all the time, I do a bit about my wife nagging me all the time," he'd get laughed out of the club because 80% of the comics on the road do a bit about his wife nagging him all the time.

And that's kind of how I feel about Clinton's accusation. She criticized Obama for being all fluff, saying his speeches are just words. Obama responded with the question, "Are 'I have a dream' just words? 'We have nothing to fear but fear itself' just words?" Since a gubenatorial candidate in Massachusetts made the same point 2 years ago when he was criticized for being all talk, Clinton's folks said Obama is a petty theif for taking the idea without crediting the Massachusetts guy.

Hell, I would have made the same point if someone told me that words don't mean anything, and I've never even heard of this guy from Massachusetts. It's not like Obama cribbed someone's theory of relativity and passed it off as his own. It's an obvious rebuttal to a weak accusation. If Clinton were a comic accusing Obama of stealing Massachusetts guy's material, 9 out of 10 comics would tell her to get lost and go write something funnier.

And if we really want to split hairs, the FDR line, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" is borrowed from Henry David Thoreau. And I came up with that all by myself... after learning about it from an episode of the sitcom Head of the Class.

Another career milestone!

2008-01-28T12:51:00.000-08:00

A quote from my act has been immortalized in t-shirt form, woo!

front row L to R: Roger, Rachel V.; back
row L to R: Rachel D, Leah, Mary, Me and Sarah

Saturday night I emceed a battle of the bands at Wartburg College in Iowa and some of the nice folks in the music department made up t-shirts with a line from my Pachelbel
Rant: "Punk music is a joke, it's really just baroque." And if that
weren't impressive enough, the back of each shirt bore the name
"Johann", a reference to another line in the rant.

I was quite
flattered by the gesture, and having gotten the t-shirt before the show
from the bassist in a couple of the bands, I knew it was going to be a
fun night. I love it when there's a big crew of music people in the
crowd.

Thanks Wartburg! You warmed my heart (which wasn't easy because it was like 2 degrees all week).

I am so goth

2008-01-24T23:19:00.000-08:00

This is what rock stars do on their days off on the road: they find the nearest claim to fame and take their picture in front of it.

Here I am in Eldon, Iowa in front of what's called the "American Gothic House," so named because it is the house in the background of Grant Wood's famous painting American Gothic, seen below:

Um, that's about it. That's all I got.

Oh, I went to a Quizno's too. They have that here in Iowa.

Honestly though, I'm having a blast. The shows have been fun, and tonight on my night off I sang Crazy Train at live band karaoke here in Des Moines. It was a freakin' blast. I highly recommend doing live band karaoke before you die.

The American Gothic House on the other hand, not really necessary.

Which Mount Will be more Pleasant?

2008-01-19T10:19:00.000-08:00

Next week starts off with a show at Iowa Weslyan, in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, and I just booked a show for next month at Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Which of course leads me to wonder which Mount Pleasant will actually be more pleasant?

How does one quantify pleasantness? Are there different areas of pleasantness, such as pleasant to live in, pleasant to look at, pleasant sounding?

I'd better get my study proposal together this weekend if I want to get any grant money for this.

Nebraskan Language

2008-01-17T14:57:00.000-08:00

To begin my touring in '08 I find myself in Nebraska, home of corn, cows, and the hometown of comedy legend Johnny Carson, which is Norfolk, NE, where I had my show last night.

Norfolk. Spelled like the Norfolk in Virginia, so one would think to pronounce it "Norfoke," or "Norf#&k" as the genteel folk in Virginia do.

Nope. It's pronounced "Nor-Fork" with a definite 'R' sound instead of an 'L' sound before the K. Of course I didn't find this out until after my show, so everytime I asked the crowd "Are you ready to rock, Norfoke?" I was making even more of an ass of myself than I usually intend.

Turns out they do that a lot here in Nebraska, it's their fun little way of instantly identifying outsiders. Me saying "Norfoke" instantly makes me sound like a snob, a carpet-bagger, someone with too much fancy phonics learnin' from shows like Sesame Street and The Electric Company.

They continue the trend elsewhere in the state where the town Beatrice is pronounced "Be-YAT-trice" in an apparent homage to Snoop Dogg. I wonder if the radio stations say things like "That was 'Love Me Do' by the BeeYATles."

But the shows have been fun so far, and tonight I'm at Doane College in Crete. Which I'm sure is pronounced "crate" or "cruton" or something. I'll remember to ask before I go on stage.

Xmas in New Hampshire

2007-12-16T06:25:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Ian last night for the loan of the guitar pic!

I left NYC with my laptop, my guitar, and my liquids and gels in a ziploc baggie, but for some reason I had no guitar pics on my person. With all of the travel and changing vehicles and switching guitar cases I lost track of my pics. And usually I have at least one or two in my pockets but since I had just done laundry I cleared out my emergency reserve.

So last night at the beginning of the show I was all set to play my set with my hotel room's key card (the best non-pic backup option I've found) and lo and behold one of UNH's finest stands up with a pic in his hand ready to loan me.

I knew it was going to be a good show after that, and I was right, it was a lot of fun up here in Durham, NH.

Now, if I could just figure out a way to get back to New York through this stupid storm. American Airlines cancelled all of their morning and afternoon flights to La Guardia, but the ones to JFK were still going for some reason.

Does the T run to Brooklyn?

Grand Forgobismot

2007-12-08T21:13:00.000-08:00

That's Grand Forks, Fargo, Bismarck and Minot, North Dakota in AT&T Wireless speak.

I'm sure you've seen those clever commercials showing various professionals being craned and dollied into different locations, all the while using their AT&T Wireless phones to conduct business and stay in touch. At the end of the ads they mush all of the town names mentioned into one hilarious hybrid, thus proving how well the AT&T phones work all over the globe.

Well, bulls&%*. This fall I have been to many places (50+ cities in 17 states) and though I'm supposed to have a nationwide AT&T plan that includes free roaming and long distance in all 50 states, when I got a bill recently I saw that they had charged me $99 for three incoming calls I received while in North Dakota.

When I called customer service to explain my problem, the rep on the phone listened, paused for a moment, then said, "let's see, North Dakota is one of the 50 states."

I seriously think she had to look that up.

She said they'd take the charge off of my bill (never did get an explanation why it was on there in the first place) and when she was doing her mandatory summation of the call I almost had to stop her because she said, "you called to inquire about roaming charges on your bill, we discussed that North Dakota was in the 50 United States..."

No, we didn't 'discuss!' This call is being recorded for quality control purposes and I don't want anyone out there thinking we actually had to deliberate on whether or not North Dakota was one of the 50 states. What, were we like "I know South Dakota's a state, but North Dakota? That doesn't sound right does it? Isn't it part of Saskatchewan or something?"

I think Consumer Reports should give me a cell phone from every major carrier and let me take them all on the road with me for a year to see which one can hack it. Then we'll know who has the right to mess with our town names.

November thus far...

2007-11-10T15:14:00.000-08:00

Dang, another lapse in posts from the road, sorry to anyone who might be waiting. In my defense, November has been pretty crazy thus far, with my 11th show in my 10th city of the month. Check out the map above, that's where I've been since my Nov. 2 show in Erie, PA opening for George Carlin!!

Opening for Carlin was absolutely amazing, though the first night was a little hectic. Not just because I drove the 7 hours to Erie, and it was the first night of a 4-show, 3-city weekend performing to crowds of over 1,000 people at each show. Right after my sound check, the power went out. Not in the theater, not in the building. The power went out in Erie, PA.

I guess the universe wants to make sure I'm staying on my toes. After an hour delay, the show went really well, and the rest of the weekend was incredible. In Columbia, MO we did two shows that were packed, and Louisville last Sunday was a great way to cap off the weekend. As I said "so long" to Mr. Carlin, he said back "be cool."

Carlin saying "be cool" to you is an instantly fulfilled directive, you're automatically cool when George Carlin is the one telling you to 'be cool.' I may be doing some more dates with him in March, stay tuned!

And now I'm back in Wisconsin--WISCONSIN!! KHAN!!!! (sorry)--where I have a run of 7 colleges in 5 days. How is that possible, you ask? Nooners! Wednesday and Thursday I had a noon show at one college and a nighttime show at another. It's busy but it's great to have the work and the shows have been a lot of fun.

I've also been learning a lot about Wisconsin. For example, I learned that people in Fond du Lac have been lied to all of their lives. As I mentioned the last time I was here, Fond du Lac means 'bottom of the lake.' When I said this on stage a student sitting near the front said "it means foot of the lake," to which I replied "well, French for 'foot' is 'pied' so I don't think so."

"That's what they taught us in school," she replied.

So there you have it, the Fond du Lac Chamber of Commerce has been brainwashing their children.

I wonder what the kids in Platteville were told in school. Hmm, I'll ask them tonight.

The Jersey Shore, Bruuuuuce, and the Max Weinberg 7

2007-10-18T11:45:00.000-07:00

Last night I did a show at Uncle Vinnie's Comedy Club, on the beautiful Jersey Shore, which is all abuzz right now because their favorite son, Bruce Springstein (with whom I share a birthday [Sep 23 if you're scoring at home]) is back on tour.

This is great for all the Bruce fans out there, and for rock and roll, as well as the denim jacket industry, but it also has a profound impact on late night t.v. See, Bruce's drummer is none other than Max Weinberg, of the Max Weinberg 7 on NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

With Max on the road with The Boss, the Late Night band will be free to be... an actual band.

I couldn't put my finger on the problem at first. Back in the 90's when Conan started, there was something about the band I didn't like. The music was great, the players are all awesomely talented, but there was something weird going on.

Then I realized, Max has never made eye-contact with his band in the decade-and-a-half they've been on the air. I've been waiting for the day when he actually looks at his band while playing and it has yet to come. When they play Conan to the desk and Max bursts into a drum roll, he's looking at Conan.

When he winds up with the big finish and pounds on the cymbals, he's looking at Conan.

I've never even seen him nod at the band, or wink, or acknowledge them in any way. Never anything to say "hey, I'm the bandleader, follow me." It's more like "I'm going over here, you probably should come too because they're paying you but I don't really care either way."

All great t.v. bandleaders had a rapport with their band. Doc Severinsen, Paul Shaffer, Remote Control's Steve Treccase (o.k. he only had a keyboard, but he looked at it!)

So now Max is on the road and filling in with the band is James Wormworth, a drummer who seems to enjoy being on the same stage with the other guys. Here's to a long, successful, and long tour!

Bruuuuce!

On your marks, get set and go now...

2007-10-01T23:26:00.000-07:00

Sometimes career milestones can sneak up on you. For example, thanks to today's noontime show at the Milwaukee School of Engineering I have accomplished a career goal I didn't even know I had: I performed in the old Blatz Brewery, which was used as the Shotz Brewery in the opening credits of Laverne & Shirley.

As I performed in the student center I could feel the aura and energy of quality late 70's/early 80's sitcoms in the air, and it made me feel warm inside, like comfort food. Like the mac & cheese comfort food they were giving away free during the show.

But the show was fun for several reasons, mostly because I actually like playing at engineering schools. They're filled with smart, tech-savvy students--o.k. nerds--and I fit in quite well (thanks to my cello playing, honor student past). And after the show, when they handed me the check they had written on the envelope "For the Nooner Fund," a reference to an episode of my video podcast.Hella cool, MSOE!

Now, enjoy the awesome theme song:

Live from the FdL

2007-09-27T12:35:00.000-07:00

Howdy from downtown Fond du Lac, Wisconsin!

Never heard of it? Don't worry, it's easy to find, right at the southern tip of Lake Winnebago, hence the French for "bottom of the lake." It may sound boring, but any town that proudly displays the fact that it has Schlitz on tap is aces in my book.

Last night I had a night off here in the FdL, and my buddy Mike Siegel was once again in the area shooting his show "If Walls Could Talk" for the Home & Garden channel. It's always nice to run into homies out here on the road. We had an interesting time simultaneously watching the Cubs and the Brewers here in Brewer country, with the locals not only rooting for the Brewers (who lost) but against the Cubs (who also lost).

With the Cubs game ending about an hour before the Brewers game, the fans were hoping to pick up a game in the standings by beating the Cardinals, and Mike and I were hoping the Brewers would lose to keep the Cubs' lead in the division at 2 games. Being the only Cubs fans in the joint we had to keep our celebrations very low key, a low five under the table or a very non-descript clinking of glasses.

I'll be able to watch this afternoon's game in my hotel room so I'll probably be a little more vocal in my support. Hopefully my neighbors on the floor won't get too freaked out.

How I learned to stop worrying and love Minot, ND

2007-09-19T08:58:00.000-07:00

Last night's show was at Minot State University in beautiful Minot, North Dakota, a town where they apparently hand out nuclear devicess, or at least send them around the country unknowingly.

I know it hasn't been on the news too much (o.k. at all) but you can't blame the big media outlets for not covering it, what with all of the suprememly important O.J. stuff going on. And Britney Spears! Much more important than NUCLEAR BOMBS being misplaced.

Fudge!

The Tallest Man-Made Thing in the World

2007-09-16T19:38:00.000-07:00

Turns out it’s in North Dakota (it's that thin, grey line in the background). It’s a T.V. broadcasting tower for KVLY and KTHI, and for being the tallest of something in the world it’s pretty boring. It’s just sitting there in the middle of North Dakota farm country doing nothing.

It’s difficult to get any perspective on it because the next tallest building within a five-mile radius is a two-story barn, and it’s so thin compared to its height it kind of just blends into the hazy sky behind it until you get within a couple of miles. But it is, in fact, the tallest structure in the world, standing at 2,063 ft (628.8 meters, for the commies overseas).

So I began to wonder why the tallest of something in the world wasn’t a little more prominent, more publicized. Is it just Midwestern modesty, or is it something else? Are people worried that if word gets out that the tallest thing on the planet is in America the evildoers of the world would try to bring it down?

And then I realized that this is a brilliant strategy. Build the biggest damn thing in the world out in the middle of nowhere, pretend it’s the most important symbol of American pride--call it the World Freedom Elvis Tower or something--and trick the terrorists into attacking it. It’ll be like one of those bug zapper lights. Lure the terrorists out of the dark with the ultraviolet promise of 72 virgins and their name on CNN, and then BZZZZT! your backyard barbecue is once again safe from radical fundamentalist Islamorama.

My plan would be at least as effective as those threat level color codes.

You Betcha

2007-09-13T11:57:00.000-07:00

Oh, yah. Downtown Fargo.

It's pretty nice actually, and I found a cozy little coffee shop with some WiFi so I can make good on my resolution to get updated.

It was last weekend that really threw me off. Thursday I had a show in Springfield, IL, Friday I flew to Bangor for a show at the University of Maine, and then Saturday I had to hop a couple of planes to get down to Williamsburg, VA for a show at William and Mary.

The upside of all of that travel was that the shows were a blast. At William and Mary there were several students from other nearby colleges that crashed the show and Lodge 1 in the student union was so full they actually had to turn people away.

Now I've made my way to the upper midwest and so far it's been pretty cool (and chilly). Tuesday at Bemidji State was a ton of fun, a crowd full of music nerds. My people! After the show I hung out in beautiful downtown Bemidji (home of the famous Paul Bunyon and Babe the Blue Ox statues) and I had a great time even though three of my four songs on the jukebox got axed by the bartender. Guess he has a problem with REO Speedwagon. Commie.

We'll see if Fargo is kinder to my music choices...

Dinner vs Supper vs Pickup Trucks

2007-09-13T08:36:00.000-07:00

Last night, toward the end of my show here in Crookston, MN (just east
of Grand Forks, ND if you must know) I used the term "pickup truck" and
brought the show to a screeching halt. Apparently people round these
parts don't like it when you say "pickup" and "truck" because,
according to them it's either apickuup or a truck, never both. The
person who brought this to my attention went so far as to say a pickup
is not a truck at all, it's simply a pickup, 'truck' being reserved for
larger, heavier vehicles.

I was fascinated, as I always am, by
regional semantics, so I asked if I was in a pop or a soda region (pop)
and then a dinner or supper part of the country. "Supper" is a very
upper Midwest thing, and when you drive through northern Wisconsin you'll still pass places that call themselves "Supper Clubs" without the least bit of kitsch or irony.

So
of course I'm in a supper region, and after the show a student told me
she had an entire discussion in one of her classes on the very subject
and they concluded supper was the largest meal of the day while dinner
was a lighter affair. I contended that supper was a later, lighter meal
when one eats diner earlier in the day, but she was adamant and I quit
the discussion.

Well, according to the American Heritage Dictionary:

Supper n.

1.
1. A light evening meal when dinner is taken at midday.
2. A light meal eaten before going to bed.

In your face! I can now drive to Fargo (in my pickup truck, drinking a soda) knowing I was right.

Now, on to more important matters, like what happens in Bemidji, MN on a Tuesday...

Can we stop "pairing" things?

2007-08-16T17:08:00.000-07:00

I've officially become sick of the word "to pair" in all of it's conjugations when referring to putting two food items together.

At first the term had sort of an erudite and refined (i.e. snobby and high-fallutin') feel to it. Chefs referred to pairing wines with meals, pairing the right salad with the proper entree, pairing your bill to a maxed-out credit card.

But then, about a year ago I heard the term in an Applebee's commercial. The chef who designed the meals (not the people who microwave the plates at the local franchise, I'm assuming) talked of 'pairing' a salad with one of his new steak dishes.

"Pairing"? At Applebee's? Yes, let's pair the jalapeño poppers with the group of loud and drunken salesmen at the bar. Or maybe we could pair six house salads with the group of teenage girls that just came from the mall (separate checks please).

But the final, shark-jumping blow to "pairing" comes this week in a commercial for a Wendy's chicken sandwich that suggested that the viewer "pair" it with a milkshake.

Come on, Wendy's! What are you thinking!? It's not a pair, it's a freakin' combo! That's like saying we're pairing General Tso's chicken with pork fried rice.

If these ad people keep this kind of B.S. up I'm going to pair my foot to their ass.

Busy Weekend Part 2--New Video and a Show!

2007-07-30T11:11:00.000-07:00

O.K., so this post won't be as exciting as the George Carlin story, but it's still fun because I finally made another episode of my video podcast Life as a Comic"!

Click To Play

I premiered it at my Session at the P.I.T. show this past Saturday and it got a really nice response from the crowd. I had sent out an email promoting the premiere of the new episode in order to force a deadline on myself, so Friday and part of Saturday were spent editing like crazy in order to get it ready for the show, but it all worked out and I'm pretty happy with it.

And the show was a lot of fun too. There were some new faces in the crowd which is always fun, I got to mix in some different material, and it was cool to be back at the P.I.T. where I did my most recent one-man show.

Thanks to the folks at the sketch group Spurn for giving me their time slot for the night.

Hope you like the new episode!

Busy Weekend Part 1--George Carlin

2007-07-29T13:54:00.000-07:00

This has been a pretty amazing weekend, starting on Thursday when I got a call to see if I was available to be the opening act at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom for comedy legend George Carlin. The call came in just after noon, and the New Hampshire spot was about a 5 hour drive from my apartment (under perfect driving conditions, which never seem to exist when driving through Massachusetts), so it was going to be close, so I basically dropped everything and jumped in my car, guitar at the ready.

I got to the venue, which is huge and holds over 1,500 people and is definitely the largest place I've ever played, and quickly tried to make myself presentable. When Mr. Carlin showed up backstage and was being introduced to me he asked, "where's our Armenian comedian?" which cracked me up, mostly because that meant he had actually been told my name. Not only that, he said he watched some of my YouTube clips on his iPhone during the drive in. How cool is that?

I was brought on stage as many people were still getting seated and getting their first round of drinks--such is the lot of an opening act--so there was a bit of a buzz in the room, but the crowd came together, I did my best half hour and I left to a nice ovation. Carlin's folks were happy, I was happy, and the crowd was ready to see their headliner.

There was a 20-minute intermission to give the folks a chance to get a drink, buy a t-shirt, etc., and then the lights went down. The crowd cheered. From off stage a voice simply said, "ladies and gentlemen, George Carlin," and the place went nuts. Several people stood. The man nearly gets a standing O. walking on the stage. Pretty effing cool.

He worked on a lot of new stuff, and it was great not only to watch him perform but to see how much adoration he got from the crowd. Not only that, he's 70 years old (though doesn't seem 70) and he still loves to perform. I have a lot of respect for that.

So how the heck did they find me? Well, I have been scheduled to open for him for a few dates in November, but I haven't really mentioned it too much because things in show business sometimes fall through and it's always awkward to retract something cool that was supposed to happen. That's why some of us performers keep things under our hats for a while.

But now that I've at least done one show for them, I guess I can let the cat out of the bag. I'm scheduled to open for him November 2, 3, & 4. I'll post the venue info when it comes in.

It's definitely one of the biggest thrills of my comedy career thus far, and the fact that it came up at the last minute and involved a madcap drive up to New Hampshire gave the whole episode a sense of adventure.

Thanks to everyone at the venue, everyone was really nice and helpful, and I even had my own dressing room with snacks! I've hit the big time.

My night at a music open mike

2007-07-11T08:44:00.000-07:00

Last night I decided to try to break out of my comfort zone by going to a music open mic here in Brooklyn, and boy howdy, if my goal was to be uncomfortable I accomplished it and then some.

Open mikes are social animals; there are regulars, the group of people that runs the open mike, friends of the people that run the open mike, etc. Going to an open mike solo and unknown is always a little odd, like being at the new kid school, but this is part of why I went, to put myself in a different environment.

I was prepared to stick to myself, not get too worried if no one talked to me, and even to not really mind if people talked while I was playing. So when I went up at midnight and people in the audience saw that it was someone they didn't know, they used the opportunity to pick up their conversations where they had left off the last time someone they didn't know was on stage.

This was all fine, and expected.

What was unexpected was the aftermath, the way people avoid you if they think no one else liked you. It's like there's a contaminate cloud of unlikeability hovering around you and if they get too close or make eye contact it will contaminate them too.

Whoo! Hadn't felt that in a while. I can now write an angsty high school comedy because I just relived those moments in the cafeteria at the beginning of the year when you don't know if anyone you know has the same lunch period and you have no idea where to sit. You walk slowly with your tray in your hands looking over the tables, as if there would be some sort of assigned seating or a place card with your name on it.

Good times people.

Actually, the one person that talked to me all night (before I performed) came up to me and said "I'm glad I came tonight because I proved to myself that everyone's doing the same thing."

"Huh?"

"It's all the same song, everyone's playing the same song with different lyrics."

I didn't agree, I actually thought the talent level was really good, so I asked, "you came here and stayed all night because you don't like it?"

Then he said that he came to prove to himself that everyone was the same and so that he could see what not to do because he wanted to keep it real, change it up, you know, put something on stage that was different. he guaranteed "come next week, you'll see some shit."

And that's another constant of open mikes: there's always at least one bitter and delusional artist.

Blog Post brought to you by...

2007-07-06T09:40:00.000-07:00

I follow the Chicago Cubs pretty closely and the other week I was excited to see that Cubs' outfielder Alfonso Soriano was named National League Player of the Week.

At least, I thought he was named National League Player of the Week. It turns out he was actually named "Bank of America Presents the National League Player of the Week."

Rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? And when he was named player of the month for June it was "National League Player of the Month Presented by Sharp." But that was a little cooler because Sharp actually sent him some free HDTVs. They didn't say what he got for Player of the Week, I'm guessing free checking?

Soon I think athletes are going to have to include their sponsors names in their own. Soon instead of hearing things like "LeBron James scored a triple double," it will be "Gatorade Presents LaBron James scored a triple double." Or "Nike Air Tiger Woods wins the Masters!"

Maybe this could help the Cubs come up with enough money next year to keep Zambrano.

Shows I'm pitching to HBO involving other ethnic stereotypes...

2007-06-13T23:03:00.000-07:00

Now that HBO no longer has The Sopranos as their cash cow, they're going to need new dramas too keep people ponying up their $11.95 a month. As a writer I'd love to pitch them some ideas for new series, so I figure I'd better capitalize on what they do best: blatant ethnic stereotyping!

Italian-Americans involved in organized crime is just the beginning! Their new series Big Love, is about Mormons who--you guessed it--have many wives!

With that in mind, I have several pitch ideas for the good people at HBO.

Idea #1:
A show about an Indian-American family who own a convenience store. Vipul and his wife have clawed their way to America and have set up shop in a gritty, urban neighborhood hoping to give their kids a better life. Their kids become enamored with thug life and the world on the street. Vipul Jr. starts a gang of his own when the Omaha Crips reject him, and his sister Amishnaya falls for the leader of a Latino drug ring. "American Bangalore: Someone Needs a Price-Check on the American Dream."

Idea #2
A show about Latin-Americans who play baseball and have many, many children. The Diaz family floated to America on a raft made of inner tubes, plywood, and love. They’re just like any American family, Mom drives the kids to soccer practice, it’s just in a cherry 77 Monte Carlo with a chop top and hydraulic shocks. With twelve kids and forty-three cousins there’s no end to the story lines we can explore.

Idea #3
Don’t forget the Jews! “The Lenders” follows your favorite members of the tribe as they try to run a family savings and loan in an industry that’s dominated by large corporations. Do they have the cash, the resources, the chutzpa, to beat the predatory mortgagers at their own game? Tune in Sunday nights to find out, or watch them On Demand any day of the week, except Saturday.

Idea #4
And to be fair, I won’t leave my own ethnic background out of the loop, so I’ll pitch a show about an Armenian/French Canadian family starring the only two Armenian/French Canadian actors I know of: myself and Adrienne Barbeau. She’ll be a wise aunt to my young single father character as we struggle to teach my kids the historic struggle of the Armenian diaspora, as well as fur-trapping and getting along with the American Indians.

So HBO, don’t freak out that your number one show is over, give me a call, I have a ton of ideas that are right up your alley.

BBC One, Baby!

2007-06-04T00:32:00.001-07:00

I was played on BBC One Radio! I just found official online confirmation!

Maybe this will help me convince the comedy clubs over there that Brits think I'm funny.

Unless they played it as a serious piece. That would weird.

At any rate, with playing in Montreal and getting played on BBC radio, I'm having quite the international summer so far.

Keepin' it Réal: Days 3 & 4

2007-05-29T11:16:00.000-07:00

The weather in Montreal was gorgeous the rest of the week and weekend, which helped get around town during their ‘transit strike.’ I put ‘transit strike’ in quotation marks because though they were on strike, the transit workers still ran the busses and trains during the morning and evening rush hours, and for 2 hours overnight.

Apparently there’s a law in Canada that a union can’t shut down a vital public service. Crazy Northerners. We have a similar law in New York, but when our transit workers went on strike they decided to pay the $1 million dollar a day fine and shut the system down completely. How’s that for a screw you?

Friday I walked down to Old Montreal and the Old Port, which, as you may have guessed, are very old. I saw some great 18th century buildings and a colorful tent on the pier that was home to Cirque du Soleil, who are not quite so old. They have to stay young and bendy.

Some people from CdS were in the crowd on Friday night, and they even invited me out after the show, but by the time I got to the club they were going to, they had moved on. The weather was so nice everyone was in that giddy, first warm weekend kind of mood and the streets were packed at night, so I did some first-class people watching.

Saturday’s shows were a blast, and afterwards I went out with some of the waitstaff from the club to a bar where the bartender recognized me from the show I did Wednesday night out in the burbs. I think my ego swelled up like 3 sizes. She said, “you look like a comedian I saw this week.”

When she found out I was, in fact, the comedian she saw, she told one of the waitresses who was at the show with her, and the people I was with from the club were impressed with my new-found international fame.

All in all, it was a great week of shows in a great city, can’t wait to get back up there.

And to the folks from Calgary, I ended up not driving straight back to NYC (stopped to see a friend in upstate NY), so I was unable to assist in the ride department. Hope your trip rocks!

2007-05-25T14:55:00.000-07:00

I've been up in Montreal for the past couple of days playing at the Comedy Nest, and it's great to be here in Quebec province because I get to realize just how bad my comprehension of French really is. I can speak it o.k., and I can read it well, but man, when French-speakers speak naturally I can't get a freakin' word.

The problem is that once they detect that French isn't my first language, they switch to English instead of repeating themselves in French, so there's no way to improve my ear. I've resigned myself to watching the Simpsons and Futurama dubbed in French as my inter-cultural experience.

On the other hand, the shows have been going great. The first night's show was actually about a half-hour drive out of the downtown area at a rock club called Bourbon Street. There was a great crowd and I had a blast, and it was a memorable Canadian debut. The other comics were really good and we all car-pooled out together which was fun.

Last night was the first night at the Comedy Nest, which is in the Pepsi Forum, which used to be "The Forum" where the Canadiens played. Now it's a movie theater/entertainment complex. The club is great and my favorite thing about it is being able to tell my friends back home that I'm playing "The Forum" which is kind of technically true but makes it sound like I'm playing an arena.

I hope they don't find out otherwise.

Damn you Conan O'Brien!

2007-05-15T19:38:00.000-07:00

Tune in to Conan tonight to see a comic doing a joke painfully similar to one of my favorites in my act. It's a joke I've been doing for a while, and it was even my "Joke of the Week" in Time Out New York back in February.

It might just be a case of independent creation and if it weren't my favorite joke I wouldn't be so bummed.

Damn. Now if I continue to do the thing people are going to think I got it from this guy. Comedy sucks sometimes.

Anyway, here's me doing my version of the joke at a February '06 appearance at Zanies in Chicago, IL: (It's the 'dress for work' joke around the 1:00 mark).

I'm all outdoorsy and s#$t

2007-05-07T11:35:00.000-07:00

The day after my show in Santa Barbara (I call it "The 'Barb" but no one else does) I decided to climb a hill, Gaviota Peak in Los Padres National Forest to be exact. And here's a picture to prove to my homies back in Brooklyn that I made it to the top.

Cali rocks, btw. Last night I went to my friend's bar for a "Lose Your Pantalones" Seis de Mayo party wherein if you took off your pants at the door and donated them to charity you'd drink half price all night long. This led to a bar full of people in their skivvies dancing to a mariachi band. The mariachis looked terrified when they showed up but they caught on eventually.

Thanks NYC and beyond!

2007-04-27T12:13:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who came out to Mo's last night and helped pack the place. There were people from Scotland, Denver, and most remarkably, the Bronx. I had a blast and even debuted a brand spankin new tune! Mo's is fast becoming one of my favorite venues in New York. The downstairs room is perfectly set up for comedy and the sound system is great, hope to set up another show there soon.

And a big shout out to Craig Baldo for opening the show with a great set and getting the crowd rolling. I wish I had a picture or two to post, but the paparazzi must have taken the night off.

Or maybe Lindsay Lohan was in town.

Wait a minute, who called whom?

2007-04-26T09:44:00.000-07:00

I spoke to a telemarketer today, which was weird for several reasons. First, I haven't spoken to one in a couple of years thanks to the "do not call" laws that were recently enacted. But weirder still was the fact that I called her.

I thought I was just activating my credit card. I got a new card in the mail for an existing account, and there was a sticker on the card telling me to call in to activate the new card. So I did.

After punching in all of the numbers and such I was transferred to a woman who was supposed to complete the authorization. She immediately went into her spiel about how I needed an insurance policy service that would protect me in the event that I, or the highest wage-earner in my household (currently my Playstation 2) became unemployed.

Although she sounded like she was near the retirement age, she had a set of lungs on her that allowed her to speak without a break for me to jump in and say "no thanks." Also interesting was that she never really asked me if I wanted it, she just went on with her script extolling the virtues of the new service until I just jumped in and said "I don't think I need that."

She expressed shock and disbelief that I wouldn't at least try it for the free 30-day trial period. I said "no" again.

Then it was the credit guard service, for 10 bucks a month they'd let me know if there were unauthorized charges on my card, and they'd let me look at my credit report every month. Again, it was a long-winded speech with no breaks for me to decline. At one point I set the phone on my desk so I could finish an email thinking she'd just give up.

Finally I asked "how many more of these do we have to go through, I just want to activate my card."

She sounded indignant, "I'm just trying to serve you sir..."

I guess it's hard for telemarketers these days, they can't call anyone so they have to sit by the phone and wait for us to call them. And when we finally do, boy do they make up for lost time. If I'd have stayed on the phone I'm sure we'd eventually have gotten to the subject of time shares, magazine subscriptions, and maybe even a multi-level marketing opportunity.

Can't wait for them to start IMing me.

Is this heaven?

2007-04-18T21:58:00.000-07:00

No, it's Iowa.

Can't think of a better way to spend a day: had a really fun show at Drake University and I got done in time to catch a few innings of the Iowa Cubs take on the Alburquerque Isotopes (yes, there really is a team called the Albuquerque Isotopes). Great show, good game, and a brat while I watched the Cubs blank the 'Topes 8-0.

And being a long-suffering Cubs fan, it's great to be able to say the Cubs are in first place. Of course, I have to say the Iowa part under my breath, but it's still fun.

And since the Cubs got more than 10 hits in the game, everyone got free tacos. Woo!

How did I miss this?

2007-04-11T07:28:00.000-07:00

My show Monday was in Hastings Nebraska at Central Community College, but I didn't find out until after the show the campus was built on the site of a former naval ammunition depot, which everyone calls "The NAD."

The NAD? Come on! This is the kind of information a comedian needs before a show!

I know, I should have done my own research ahead of time, but I had a little trouble finding the place. The school was so out in the middle of nowhere the address on their website actually just says "Highway 6, Hastings, NE;" no street number, no crossroad, just a P.O. Box.

Too bad my rented smugglermobile doesn't have GPS. But I guess it couldn't, that's how the Feds get ya.

Woo! Spring Break! Nebraska? wait...

2007-04-08T22:42:00.000-07:00

I’m in Grand Island, Nebraska for 3 straight days for shows at three community colleges in the area, and since the shows are during the day I’ll have my nights free to do, um... yeah, I think I’m going to get a lot of writing done.

It was a magical trip into Grand Island, involving an overnight 4-hour drive from New York to BWI airport in Baltimore, a 7:30am departure, a connection at O’Hare, and a 150-mile drive from Omaha in a rented Dodge Caliber.

By the way, if you’re a bootlegger or a drug runner, the Dodge Caliber is the car for you. Thanks to its inefficient use of interior space, or its copious use of plastic molding depending on how you look at it, there’s a lot of room to create secret compartments and storage for special ‘cargo.’ I may try to find a few ounces of some sort of contraband to stash somewhere in the car before I return it, as a surprise to a subsequent renter.

Yes, I’m that bored.

It is Easter though, perhaps the town will be jumping tomorrow. I’ll keep you posted.

'Rockegan' Illinois in the press

2007-04-01T12:09:00.000-07:00

Since the club I played last weekend was so close to my ancestral home of Waukegan, Illinois, the local paper did a very nice write up on me and the show, and they even mentioned the my nickname for the hometown, "Rockegan," which means the name is now officially searchable in Lexis/Nexis, the press... it's officially "out there!"

Even cooler is that they picked up a picture of me from my website that I took myself--one of those self portraits in which you hold the camera at arms length, point the camera back at yourself and hope you got the touristy thing that's over your shoulder in frame. So now, not only did I get a nice mention in the paper that brought a few more folks out to the show, I am a published newspaper photographer.

Or at least a papparazzo.

Weird thing is, in the picture I'm actually in New Mexico on Route 66, near Tucumcari I think. Nowhere near Rockegan.

Those papparazzi follow me everywhere.

Dylan? In Outer Space?

2007-03-25T22:18:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-03-22T16:51:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-19T06:49:00.000-07:00

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?

2007-03-11T12:29:00.000-07:00

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?

2007-03-05T10:58:00.000-08:00

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.

Off/On

2007-01-31T21:31:00.000-08:00

Due to the extreme glitchiness of my computer and internet connection tonight I had to troubleshoot. For the computer, that involved restarting, and for the cable modem I was instructed to turn it off for five minutes and then turn it back on.

Really? It's 2007 and we still fix things by turning them off and on? That's the way I fixed my Atari 2600 for cry-eye!

If I could only find the game cartridge on my computer to pull it out and blow on it, I'd be in business.

Oh wait, the spell check on this page isn't working now. I'm going to have to call blogger and tell them to turn their site off and on. Everybody save your posts!

(By the way, "blogger" gets flagged by blogger.com's spell check. You'd think it would know it's own name.)

Trey Wingo just said "Waukegan" on the T.V.!!

2007-01-09T21:46:00.000-08:00

My home town!! On ESPN's NFL Live!

It was in reference to a story about Bears defensive lineman Terry "Tank" Anderson who had to appear in court on a weapons charge. Since he lives in Lake County, Illinois, the county court is in my hometown of Waukegan.

Unfortunately Waukegan usually only gets mentioned in this context. I remember when Scottie Pippen of the (six time) World Champion Chicago Bulls had to appear in court for whatever shennanigans he was involved in at the time, they had reporters and news vans outide of the courthouse in downtown 'Kegan. It was the most exciting thing that happened since the grade school orchestra came back from a Nashville music competition with a gold medal (thanks in part to yours truly on the cello).

So Tank, welcome to my hometown. Might I suggest ordering a pizza from Mike's Pizza House or Gimano's (if you like Chicago thin crust) and if you're taking Washington Street back to Gurnee where you live, stop by. I got a hold of Madden 2k7 for XboX 360 and we can play a game or two. I'll even let you be the Bears.

New Year, New Video

2007-01-02T10:28:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

Time for another clip on YouTube! My last post got featured on YouTube's main page, and that led to the clip spreading around the western world to band geeks and music afficianados everywhere (I myself am mostly the former).

So here's a new post, a couple of observations on pop tunes: the theme from Friends and the song Every Morning by Sugar Ray.

I hope you like it, I'll post another in a few weeks!

Hello & Thanks to all posters!

2006-12-28T19:35:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone,

Since I post to this blog through a weird interface, I didn't even realize how many comments I had gotten on the Rant post! Thanks to everyone!

If anyone want's more info or more updated stuff, I can also be found at MySpace or at my website!

Happy New Year!

Glad he's putting his nose to the grindstone

2006-12-28T19:28:00.000-08:00

From an AP article:

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer 45 minutes ago

CRAWFORD, Texas -
"President Bush worked nearly three hours at his Texas ranch on Thursday to design a new U.S. policy in Iraq, then emerged to say that he and his advisers need more time to craft the plan he'll announce in the new year."

What, 3 hours wasn't enough?

Man, being President is hard work.

This makes me wonder, how much time did he put in before we invaded?

Featured on YouTube!

2006-12-20T14:53:00.000-08:00

My Pachelbel Rant video is featured on YouTube today!!

Pretty Freakin' Sweet!

Little did I know that while I was out Christmas shopping I was performing for thousands of people! Gotta love technology.

Thanks to everyone who's watched it!

Taxi Cab Rate Hike

2006-11-30T13:21:00.000-08:00

The rates for taxis in NYC have gone up. If they ever actually took people to Brooklyn I'd be worried.

I'm on a new Christmas CD!

2006-11-22T13:33:00.000-08:00

That's right, Hi-Fi Christmas Party Volume 2, with Yuletide power-pop originals from artists including The Spongetones, The Elvis Brothers, The Bradburys, October Elsewhere, Sketch Middle, The Gripweeds, Joey Molland and more!

All money raised will go to benefit the Blood Center in Milwaukee to fund research into Von Willibrands and other diseases. My good friend and former bandmate Dan Pavelich, currently playing with the Bradburys, is the driving force behind the benefit CD and he knows first hand about the good work going on at the Blood Center in Milwaukee because his daughter Mari struggles with Von Willibrand's disease.

So if you'd like to help a good cause and hear some excellent Christmas-themed power-pop, check out the CD which will be 'dropping' right after thanksgiving.

Links to purchase will soon be posted at the Bradburys' site.

Rock on!