CLOSE MY EYES AND THINK OF ENGLAND
So. Right. I'm taking this trip for two reasons.

One, I'll never get the rest I need while I'm here. It's like holding back a river with your hands - the more you push things away to give yourself more space, the more other opportunities, other small-e emergencies, other piddling little things stream around and fill the gap.

(This is part of why I came here: for the continuous opportunity. I don't want to leave that. But I do need to come up for air, and that's not happening. I'm aware that I've retreated into myself a bit these last few weeks. That would be why.)

So I'm going as far as I reasonably can, to a complete other world, to cut myself off and get refreshed for the next round.

Two, I'm going to finally see Leyna. And her four kids. The fares dropped just before Thanksgiving, and we've been talking about her coming here in the new year, but going that week just suddenly seemed to make sense. So that's why I'm going.

Anyone need anything? Big Ben letter opener? Some of those skanky vegetable spreads for yer morning toast? Everything But The Girl bootlegs? Postcards? (Hell, I don't know).

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
My bike got stolen last night.

It was a cheap little $50 piece of crap, but I'm still pissed. I spent $200 on locks, and then I was dumb enough to lock it to a tree on a busy street, thinking that the traffic plus the double locks would deter greedy little idiot hands.

So whoever stole it managed to lift it off the tree and make off with it. It's a pretty big tree. But the ingenuity of a bike thief should not be underestimated. Also, you know, people steal things because they can.

Now the bike to them is useless, unless they get the lock off, and of course it's a real expensive lock, with the thick kryptonite links, the whole deal. I'm most pissed about the lock, actually. It cost three times what the rest of the bike cost.

All in all, I'm out a couple hundred bucks, and I'll wind up doing without something special (a new pedal for the guitar, maybe a trip to Toronto, something on that order) to get a new bike, because I refuse to not have a bike. But this sucks.

So. Anyone know where to get a decent cheap gray-market bike in NYC?

MY CRAZY ZINELESS WEEKEND II
(ACCOMPANYING NOTES)
On the way back into the city after moving Lois (see below), we all came back to Manhattan in the empty moving truck. There wasn't enough room in the cab for the four of us, so Sharon Fogarty and I got to ride in the back, with the doors closed. So we switched clothes, which solved two problems: the we-have-to-do-something-mischevious-while-we're-back-here problem, and the whole Halloween thing. It was too late to go scrabble up some dressy stuff, and we were way too tired to think anyways.

So I was Sharon for Halloween, and she was me.

This sounds really kinky until I tell you that she was wearing sweats and a turtleneck. And the back of the truck was virtually dark. And of course, we were both pretty gamy from moving heavy things all day. But hey, everything fit.

Then when we got there, it turns out one of the other acts wasn't around, so the sound guy asked me to come up on stage and play a few tunes until the band shows up. So I'm up on stage in Sharon's clothes, playing a borrowed guitar while I'm really exhausted and I've had about half a beer and it's gone straight to my head, and it was one hell of a lot of fun. It felt like I was at a house party and someone passed the guitar to me and I played a few tunes and then passed it on to someone else.

So I'm up there, and I kind of muse aloud, what should I play, and I hear, from literally the four corners of the room.

"The one about Katharine Hepburn!"
"The one about Jodie Foster!"
"The one about Geena Davis!"
"The one about Helen Hunt!"

Hmf. Smartasses.

Let me just state for the record that the song I sometimes claim is about Geena Davis (I Loved Annie First) is actually a true story about someone really named Annie, one song's allegedly about Jodie Foster only because it has the line "I'd kill another Beatle / if I thought it would impress you" (it used to mention the President, but you know, the line didn't scan), and I have one song that mentions Helen Hunt (The I In Iconoclast), but that's only because of a rhyme.

I do not feel a need to defend the song I wrote about Katharine Hepburn.

I am aware that I have protested way, way too much.

MY LONG-WINDED EXCUSES WON'T BLOW DOWN ANYONE'S HOUSE
(or: TORN FROM THE SOCIETY PAGES)
So after moving my very close personal friend (VCPF) Lois Slain to her swankeroo new home in Park Slope (which despite the fact that there was eight people helping still took all day, but because it was these eight particular people it was fun and cool and, well, the right kind of stupid to make it worthwhile), I went to the Sidewalk for Patsy Grace's CD Release Party for Name Her Lucky, which also doubled as the birthday party for her husband, Grey Revell, who played with his band the Cinema Fantastique. (My VCPFs Lunchin also played, so it was of course the Social Event Of The Season[tm]). It was a party which of course ran all night and was delightful even if we were all zonked from all the heavy lifting.

Then this morning, after brunch, the band rehearsed for a few hours, and then I missed a play because I was stuck in Queens and couldn't get back but barely in time to catch my other VCPFs Andrew Heller & the Boy Wonder, who dressed as Captain Stupid and his sidekick, With Stupid. Charming couple of lads, but they know it, but still, Jean Claude Van Damn they're charming.

And then John Kessel played right after, and he was real good, he runs hot & cold but today he ran hot, so I stayed for a couple of songs and ... that, um, brings us to right now.

Which is why I'm not going to have the new A/M ready a week early like I had hoped. It'll be the first Monday of the month, just like always. The articles will appear on the A/M site probably next weekend, and in print soon after. Let me know if you'd like a copy gratis.

But now, I'm going to bed. Thanks.

PS - I'm going to England next month! Details to follow.

THIS EDITOR'S HAT IS TOO TIGHT! DEADLINES, SHIT! DIVE! DIVE!
So I've started putting some other stuff up for those of you who are into reading. It's mostly CD reviews at this point, but that's only because I've written a couple of them this morning for A/M, for which this is super layout mega blowout weekend!

Also, I finally have a description of myself I can kindasorta live with. Also, there's the explanation of the birth of Chico Bangs, which I know will settle a few bets.

VENT
I've got this creeping feeling that there is something I ought to be doing that I'm not.

I mean, I always feel that way, like my time could be better spent, that I might do better if I booked more shows or rewrote my bio or went to see someone's show (hey, Janet Vodka's CD Release party is tonight, and I really want to go...) or sleep (sleep!) instead of wandering around in a funk like I am, or reading some pulpy novel or website (or weblogging or reading other weblogs) or whatever.

I don't have time for this. I don't have time for this.

I could have spent the time I spent writing that last sentence twice writing two sentences that were more profound and less self-obsessed.

I've got liner notes to write, dammit! Songs to edit, a zine to put together! A scene is depending on me!

I'm exaggerating slightly, but -- you get the idea.

The big problem is, I've gotten so used to doing all my work alone that I don't know how to ask for help anymore. And when I burn out a little bit, like I am now, I have nowhere to go in my brain, and it all comes crashing down.

I'm better at getting over this than I used to be, but this was one of the lessons I had to learn when I moved here, and it turns out that I still haven't got it down yet.

I think I really need a vacation. I hope I'm smart enough to take one.

"Baseball Season! "
"Hockey Season! "
"Baseball Season! "
"Hockey Season! "
"BASEBALL SEASON! "
[SFX: boom.]
"Hockey Season."

There's a part of me (actually, a pretty large part of me) that thinks of sports as yer basic opiate of the masses, something to keep us all occupied while the world goes to hell, just another As-The-Stomach-Turns that exists primarily to give us something to talk about with strangers or coworkers.

And while I totally buy that, I also understand that it's the stuff of modern first-world life. Our culture is built around sport in a way that it hasn't been since ancient Rome, and as a songwriter, part of my job is to study the culture I find myself in and try to understand it. (Right?)

(Well, okay, that's the high-falutin academic reason. Equally true is the fact that part of me likes to see millionaires jump up and down like idiots and fling frozen rubber all over the place in front of millions of people.)

Anyway, I won't go on about this too much, but I'd be lying if I said I don't care completely. (I was always surprised in Toronto when I mention that there were sporting events that the whole rest of the city would be galvanized by, like the World Series or the Toronto Maple Leafs going deep into the playoffs or something, and the songwriters in town would be completely and utterly oblivious. My thinking was, how do you expect to connect with your audience if you don't know what they care about? You don't have to paint your face blue or anything, but at least know what's on the front page, you know?)

At least here in New York, the artistes and auteurs I've met seem to follow what's going on a bit more. You can be oblivious to a lot here (it's a big town, dontcha know), but everyone seems to be into at least one of the major sports. Which makes me feel more comfortable, not because now we have something to talk about, but more that these people are plugged in to what's going on in the rest of the world, a trait which I often equate with relative stability.

[Subject for another rant: Politics, world affairs, sex and the new television season fill the same void.]

Anyway, a loving site that puts the history and the present of my favorite team into excellent context is Fifty Mission Cap: an elegant little tribute to the life and death of Bill Barilko, scorer of probably the most famous goal in Leaf history, the overtime Stanley Cup winner in 1951. He was already a legend by the time the Tragically Hip recorded their song about him, but... so?

Anyway. I get my regular opiate now, uncut by any world series business on the sports pages.

JOINING GANG GREEN
I couldn't stand it. That lavendery pukey background color I used to have was just driving me nuts. I tried to not care, and I could not not care.

Flawed or not, I have an aesthetic sense. Damn. I'll get kicked out of the boys club for this for sure.

So between that and this show of online solidarity for Nader (as organized by Angry Red Planet), I decided to change my background color.

I am kind of aware that at this point most of the political talk I seem to be engaging in is either preaching to the converted or shouting at the deaf. Here in Manhattan, everyone knows about Mr. Nader, and everyone has an opinion about the two- (or rather the one-) party system and whether their vote is best spent (or wasted) on Ralph or Al or George or Harry or Pat or Raoul or whoever. I don't know many undecided voters anymore. I know people who won't vote, but they've at least made the decision to not vote, and I can kind of respect that. This is great and as it should be.

I suspect the Nader Crusade (such as it is) still has meaningful work to do outside of the major cities, where there's been less talk of alternatives to the Big Two. That's where the Democratic fearmongering is I think most effective, and where maybe people might still be able to be convinced that the best way to offer up a real change in the way power is distributed in this country is to open up the arena to more schools of thought, which means getting Ralph at least his 5 percent, if not more.

So that's why I'm going green.

NO LONGER A VIRGIN
Jess at Half Angel Half Tart is the first person to actually post a link to this site. I don't know what you're thinking, but, um, thanks!

I've been reading other weblogs now for the last few weeks (I've had this site up just over a month now, so I'm aware of there being a few bugs left), and I'm kind of in awe of what some people can do with a website and a few minutes of free time in a day. (I knew this site is ugly, which is one of the two reasons I put a pig on the top banner*.) Of course, those of you that come here through Blogger or Weblogs.com or someplace like that are all, well, duh, but those of you that come here through the music links (or the front page) would do good to check out some of those links on the left, just to see what's there.

And maybe you'll meet someone whose interests you share, in the same part of the world, and you'll find true love, and I can take credit!

Because really, I am all about taking credit. You thought Al Gore was all about credit. [Snort.] Like that song I wrote for my close, personal friend Randy Bachman once upon a time says, You Ain't Seen Nothin Yet.

*The other reason being that it's actually part of a big mural in my neighborhood in the East Village, with a huge fire-apple red wall with the above pig inside this yellow circle. (You can see the bricks in the picture if you squint.) It's really striking, especially since it doesn't appear to be selling anything. Which in itself is pretty rare in this neighborhood.

IF I WERE A RICHMAN
Jonathan Richman is one of my biggest songwriting heroes of all. I deeply respect and aspire to emulate his sense of single-entendre, of absolute joy, in everything he does. His pretty little songs about chewing gum wrappers (or his daughter, or Walter Johnson, or dancing in lesbian bars, or whatever) are perfect little snapshots taken with a scratchy old rock and roll camera, and whether he plays solo (unwittingly showing off his unbelievable rhythm chops) or with a big band, his sense of wonder shines through in rainbow technicolor.

Anyway, this page (from Boston-area producer and hard-times survivor Joe Harvard) is the best Jojo site I've seen. Not that there's many: Jonathan is still kind of mistrustful of the whole Internet thing. But there's lots of pictures, a comprehensive bio, and an extensive interview with the man himself. I hope he keeps it up.

Other Jojo Resources:
The Abominable Lesbian Vampire Cappuccino Bar in Cyberspace - It's big and loving, but beware link rot: it hasn't been updated in over a year.
The Jonathan Richman Rockin' Lyrics Pages - You know how hard it is to write a non-complex, irony-free lyric?
Twin/Tone's JR Page - A few Paul Westerberg-looking pics of Jonathan and a little story he wrote.
and some more JR links, mostly to various surly interviews and a few non-English zine pieces, but his annotated bootleg collection is fun to thumb through.

THE UPSIDE OF BANDWAGON JUMPING
I actually went out with someone last night to a real honest-to-god bar, to watch the World Series. I feel like the only one left in town who isn't mad about either the Mets or the Yankees, so I was apprehensive, but I really wanted to just go out someplace for a drink after a long and shitty day, and I wound up in this Hell's Kitchen yuppie bar (Hell's Kitchen ain't what it useta be, from what I hear, the neighborhood is all sullied with like pretty people and petit bourgeois types, yuck, he said, fingering his Palm Pilot nervously), and everyone was sitting on couches watching the big screen, and there was a smattering of Mets fans, but every time the Yankees did something, the place went a little nuts. The Nugent scream (whoooooooooo, babeh! whoooooooooooo!) got pretty obnoxious when the room filled with them after every Met out or Yankee walk, and by the fourth or fifth inning, I knew I could not stay on the fence any longer.

Insofar as I actually care, I had become a Mets fan.

Benny Agbayani is this round little guy who looks like the kid you'd pick last in the playground. He's more like an extra from Raiders of the Lost Ark or something. He'd hit the ball and huff and puff as he ran, his arms flailing and little legs furiously paddling underneath him, and I knew the first time I saw him come to the plate in the second inning or whenever that this was my guy. Sports are always better when you have someone specific to pull for, and this was my cat.

And when he delivered the game-winning hit last night, I felt so damned smug. This is the upside of being a sports fan. When your team is a winner, you're a winner.

And when the Mets -- my Mets -- get pasted tomorrow, I shall deny this evening ever happened.

TRUDEAU IS DEAD, LONG LIVE TRUDEAU
Spancan's requiem for our (sorry, Canada's) greatest PM, certainly in my lifetime, touches on the emotional part of why it was so hard for me to leave, and why I stayed longer than maybe I otherwise would have. There was a real sense of hope that something genuinely great was about to happen, something that would lift the Canadian people to some kind of heightened sense of national consciousness, that Canadians were on the verge of something truly better. This piece (from Marigold) spends a little less time blaming the Ralph Kleins, Mike Harrises and Stockwell Days for killing that hope in a lot of people, instead putting a great man into proper context, from being cool despite befriending the tyrant Suharto to the constant push for progress in every meaningful context:

...every time I walk by Ryerson University or see the Toronto Reference Library or so many other brutalist buildings in this city I silently thank Trudeau for those ugly fantastic buildings - they make me feel alright inside. They make me feel safe in the knowledge the people have some conception of a greater good so if I ever fall down, someone will help me up. (Quasi) socialism and good buildings go together so well. Today so many buildings are such horrible mistakes - not because of bad architecture - but due to a civic malaise that is antithetical to the dream of Trudeau's beautiful Canada (and thinking about it can still can give me real live genuine Goosebumps if I'm feeling particularly sentimental).

HALLOWEEN SPECIAL: FASHION DON'TS GALORE
So here at work, for no real applicable reason, we get a big glossy Mens Wear Daily. (we've tried to cancel our subscription, but they seem to not listen. We refuse to pay for it anymore, so it's just free mocking fun for us now.) Now, it's large (like the old Life Magazine-sized), about 16 or so glossy pages (poor paper stock, too) of stern-looking pouty boys wearing the ugliest crap I have ever seen.

Straps stick out of the bellies of cropped sweaters. Leather patches hang loosely like old scabs on triple-breasted neon dinner jackets. A bike courier's shoulder pack is sewn into an otherwise expensive-looking wool suit. Like, who the hell is ever going to wear that? The best man is expecting an overnight delivery during the service, and there's no time to change!

Also peppered throughout the magazine are pictures of famous people and fashion types (many of whom are people as well), taken in that tabloidy flash style that makes everyone look like they're about to be killed. Even the Beautiful People, of which there are many, look rather gangsterish.

Today's obligatory model layout features a fellow who, while probably very nice in person, quite resembles Ricky Martin's sister. And in all six photos, he is dressed like, well, like a Joan Jett fan, all colored leather and tight, worn pastel t-shirts.

I have no problem with the fashion industry. I just wish they would make something to actually wear.

ABSOLUTELY TRUE STORY (language alert, if it matters)
This really happened last night. I'm copying this down from my notes I made right after:

At 8:20 pm, I got in a cab (number 8N47) at 12th St. and 1st Avenue and asked to go to the WAH Center at Broadway and Marcy in Brooklyn to see my housemate's play. I've never been to this place before, but it's in Williamsburg, so I've got a clue where it is.

Anyway, as we got on the onramp for the Williamsburg Bridge, the driver turned around in his seat and says, "By the way, I don't fucking know Brooklyn so I can't take you wherever the fuck it is you're going."

I told him I didn't know where it was exactly either, but Broadway's a major street and Marcy Avenue is a subway station, so maybe we could figure it out?

"No, you don't fucking understand, I don't do Brooklyn. You should have known that when you got in, I don't fucking do fucking Brooklyn."

I swear, I thought he was kidding. I said maybe he should put a sign on the cab saying No Brooklyn on the outside of the cab, or maybe, y'know, not accept the fare if he didn't know where he was going.

At this point, he was alternately stopping and speeding, and we're still in the middle of the Williamsburg bridge. "No, motherfucker, you don't fucking understand. I fucking don't do fucking Brooklyn. I ain't taking you where you want to go."

I was clearly not getting that this is a dangerous situation. "'Watch your mouth," I said.

Now, the Williamsburg Bridge is a two lane highway with no shoulder or walkway on it. There's a rail and then water. There's nowhere to go. He stops the cab. We're about two thirds of the way over the bridge. Much screaming and honking of the cars behind and around us.

He turns around, very slowly, and says, "I Don't. Fucking. Do. Brooklyn."

At this point, I get it. "Oh, well, I am sorry to bother you, then. If you let me out at the bottom of the bridge, I'll figure something out."

He doesn't move. He just keeps looking at me. I figure it out. The self preservation muscle engages, and I slowly reach over and open the car door.

He was out of the cab in a flash, and he ran around the car screaming blue murder. The window was open, and I'm frantically trying to close it, and he starts punching me through the window. He hit me with at least three good shots before I managed to get the window closed, and I just waited, hyperventilating, while he punched and kicked his own door and window. My only thought is, this guy is going to drag me out of this car and heave me into the river.

So I let him blow off some steam (I was completely at a loss as to what else I could do), and after a few minutes, he calms down enough that I feel okay asking him if I can just pay him and get out. I open the window a crack (all I have is a twenty, so I clear the fact that I need change with him) and he short changed me a few bucks, but I saw it as the price of my escape.

He got back in his cab, and just sat there. So I got out, and walk down the bridge, and after trying with no success at all with my only three quarters to call the taxi complaint number (shouldn't there be someone on the line more than M-F, 9 to 5?), I find my own way to the WAH Center.

I only missed the first act.

TODAY'S BARENAKED LADIES MOMENT
So I'm at work, pounding away at the stuff I gotta get finished before the weekend (and before tonight's show), and suddenly I hear a sound I haven't heard in years and years.

From one of the offices I can hear a bass line, just a bass line, to a song I haven't heard in a long, long time. What the hell I'm doing remembering bass lines, I'll never know, but it's instant. It brings me right back to that time.

Everyone has a back-then story. This is mine.

The Barenaked Ladies at that point were a local act, no one knew who they were or anything, the kind of band only their friends knew about, sure they were good, and cool in that geeky way, but I mean really, who notices this stuff? It was fun, stupid music, they were kind of in our scene and it was cool to have a band we actually knew, whose exes were our exes, who showed their fake ID at the same beer store we showed our fake ID at, it was great.

I get up to investigate, and sure enough, it's one of the MDs of the company, listening, singing along to that same demo tape that used to play at our bad parties in North York:

If I had a million dollars (If I had a million dollars)
I'd buy you a K-Car (a nice Reliant automobile)
If I had a million dollars
I'd buy your luuuuuuuuve...

And this guy, who if he doesn't already have that much probably will and soon, is singing along, a bit too loud, and then rewinding the tape and listening to it again, and it's all I can do to not laugh.

It is one hell of a catchy song, even now.

WHERE EVERYONE KNOWS YOUR NAME
Walking home from work, I passed this storefront with a small child in the doorway. I'm not really paying attention, but suddenly I hear him yell:

"Tony!"

And sure enough, he's pointing right at me. "TONY!" he says again, with more emphasis.

A woman comes from inside the store.

"Does he know my name's Tony?" I ask.

"Naw," she laughs, "My boyfriend's name is Tony, so he thinks that's what all men are named."

And for a second, swear to God, I was thinking, Now where do I know you from?

EXPECT TO SEE ONLY MORE OF THIS

from the London Sunday Times, via Looka:
Cloning Teams Cross Pig and Human DNA

To elaborate on the point below... wouldn't you like someone other than the major biotechnology corporations to also be researching the Great Genetic Frontier? There's only going to be more of these kind of advances and forays into biology, and I'm not saying that corporations shouldn't be funding some of this stuff, but having other people working on this who are unaffiliated with any company accountable to shareholders or Boards of Directors (or as close to unaffiliated as one can realistically get these days) seems to me more than merely a good idea progress-wise, but kind of necessary to help avoid the more deeply evil implications of such developments.

All the same, it's hard to get used to this kind of advancement.

CONTENT PROVIDERS ARE KING,
CONTENT CREATORS ARE CLOWNS
Ira Nayman was the leader of the very first (and second-last, thank you) comedy troupe I was ever a part of (this is ten or twelve years ago now). We did a couple of half-hour shows (one was a Christmasized version of War Of The Worlds which I still have somewhere on tape) for CIUT radio, and went our separate ways. (Okay, and I had a crush on his sister in high school.)

Here he's written about yet another disturbing thing about the web: that online archives, which took years to create, written one paper at a time by students who were forced to sign away the rights to those papers in order to receive their diplomas, are now being sold by corporate "content providers" to other corporate entities, like Contentville and the like.

The problem, if I read Ira correctly, isn't that the stuff is being read. The problem is that someone else is making money off of the efforts of the people who created the work in the first place. If an institution is going to charge someone $10,000 or $20,000 or $50,000 to get a degree, then to sell the rights to the papers they collect to a third party, so they in turn can sell it to a fourth party, cheapens the value of a university degree even further.

At least with music or other books or articles, you have an option to sell it (or give it away or hide it under your bed or put it on lampposts) yourself. Your PhD thesis - your product of 4 (or 6 or 8 or whatever) years of toil and research - is taken away from you under what amounts to duress, and your only other options are to either do the research yourself (outside of college, on your own time, with reduced resources), or to not do the research in the first place.

Which hurts everyone. University research is one of the basic foundations of human progress. This is a stupid reason to drive people away from performing this service to humanity. (Go ahead, laugh. But (just as a quick frinstance) do you want Pfizer or Glaxo being the only ones left doing chemical experiments? We'll never learn anything that can't be sold in pill form.)

Yet another reason I am out of college. I'd rather give my meager ill-informed writing away to you, Dear Reader, than let some suit sell it to some other suit (at way over market value, I harbor no illusions) to make the payment on some beach house. If there's going to be any beach house buying going on here, I'm gonna be the one doing it.

WHEN THE WORLD SERIES DOESN'T EVEN INCLUDE THE OTHER THREE BOROUGHS
In '92 and '93, one could mark the onset of autumn by the leaves turning, the cheap leather jackets replacing the white slacks in the closets of the hipsters, and the Toronto Blue Jays winning another World Series. Living in Toronto, those were heady times, and I think people knew it couldn't last, for all kinds of reasons: a 65-cent dollar, a lack of homegrown talent (unless Rob Ducey counted), and probably most importantly, a city-wide inferiority complex when comparing Toronto to the big American cities. We can beat them once in a while, and that's pretty good, isn't it? We've done alright, eh?

Anyway, back then it was easy to be a fan. Everyone loves a winner. Now, with my departure from the city and the Blue Jays' departure from the top of the standings, I think I checked the standings maybe half a dozen times this season. I don't miss baseball, despite the fact that it's constantly in my face nowadays.

George Carlin has a theory about following sports. He has no idea why some people's mental well-being is tied so completely to the rises and falls of a sports team. Why are you letting a bunch of overpaid and underachieving multimillionaires who don't give a tinker's cuss about you dictate your moods, especially if they're bringing you down? Sure, when they're doing well, let them bring you up. Civic pride is a wonderful thing. But really, if your team stinks, don't let it bum you out. That people follow bottom-feeders like the Montreal Expos or the Los Angeles Clippers baffles him. These teams are terrible, and always have been, and always will be, amen.

This is coming to mind because here in New York, everyone is walking around with that look of post-orgasmic reverie in their eyes. I feel like the only person on Earth who has yet to declare myself a fan of either the Yankees or the Mets, and it feels a little bit like being in a gang war and being forced to choose my affiliation by both sides.

Yes, that's exactly what the World Series is, especially this year. A big, basically friendly, media-driven, corporate-supported, suburban-demographic-directed gang war. I hope the rest of the world (outside of New York City) doesn't care, but I bet it'll be forced down the throats of anyone who has their TV plugged in. See, it's the subway series! It hasn't happened since Eisenhower was president! It's a big deal! It's Steinbrenner's Empire versus the Lunchbucket Joes! It's the Good New York Team against the Evil New York Team!

Sorry. In two weeks, the streets of New York, and the televisions of the network world, will be maybe a little safer again. One can hope.

NOTICE
If you come down to Manhattan Theatre Source tonight, you'll recognize me by the fact that I'll be wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs baseball cap and (if the weather holds) a black pleather minidress. Or maybe I'll just stick with the Oompa-Loompa t-shirt & boxer shorts with the little hearts on them.

It's gonna rock.

WISHIN' AND HOPIN'
I envision a day, one shining beautiful day, probably after baseball season is over, when skies are bright and waters calm, and Barry White shall sing Johnathan Richman covers sweet and low in every lounge bar in every bus station on Earth. And I shall be in one of said bars, martini in one hand and my muse made flesh in the other (or barring that, my notebook, whichever, I'm cool either way at this point).

I envision a day when going to Madison Square Garden to see the third most popular Presidential candidate in the land is not considered a subversive act.

I envision a day when one can find whatever website one needs to find without having to accommodate for the spelling habits of the one Canadian-American on the staff.

I envision a day when all the members of Limp Bizkit will be forced to pool their earnings from their raping and pillaging spree across the world disguised as a music career and open a Burger King in Orlando or wherever.

And never, ever be heard from again.

Then I shall be able to rest, knowing that all is right with the world.

Okay, that's a lie. But I'll be able to make a new wish list, and won't that be cool!

WARNING: EFFUSIVE PRAISE AHEAD
I just got back in from Delaware's wonderful East End Cafe (by way of Philadelphia), and I have to say the night absolutely rocked. The food (and the staff) were better than I was told they would be (and my guides Mary Krause and The Guy I Opened For, Adam Brodsky, talked the place up to me plenty before we got there), and the show went more or less smoothly. Them backwoods intallectual types shore do like their songwritin, and I kept em busy till Brodsky got on & sung his 8000 songs all of which are clever as hell, and damn, I ain't got nothin bad to say. (Sorry.)

So basically I played pretty good, sold a few CDs and didn't get my ass kicked. Can't ask for a better night than that. I hope Rich Katz will have me back soon.

I LIVED THROUGH AN ERA OF UNPARALLELED PROSPERITY
AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT

Notes on tonight's Ralph Nader rally at Madison Square Garden:

Phil Donahue opened the night with a stellar little speech that got everyone pumped. (Well, after Tom Tomorrow's cartoon showed on the big teevee, which everyone saw and laughed at, even if the sound was terrible.) He knows how to speak slowly enough that the entire room could catch him, and despite the intellectual heavy hitters to come, he got more points across than anyone. Of course, he did have the benefit of speaking to fresh ears.

Michael Moore, bless his heart, gave about 15 minutes on courage and fear and how the one thing the four faces on Mount Rushmore share was that none of them believed in the two-party system. While funny, energetic and well-received, his voice would sometimes go into the higher registers, and it became hard to hear. (There were sound problems the whole night.)

Susan Sarandon's speech sounded like it was cut short for time. But damn, she seems like the coolest person.

As far as the music, there was some completely forgettable rap trio that didn't turn down the bass and rapped so unintelligbly that the whole thing wound up sounding like some white Camaro temporarily stopped beside you at a light on a Saturday night.

They were the only underwhelming act of the evening, though. Ani Difranco played a little backpacker guitar and kept the polemics to a minimum; Ben Harper -- well, Ben reminded me of Van Morrison: soulful as all get out, the songs are really well-crafted, but he doesn't know when to shut up (although I never thought I'd hear a version of "Sexual Healing" at a political rally); Patti Smith played a couple of dirges (she should have read "Piss Factory," dammit!) and ceded the stage to, I can't remember the order anymore, but -- oh, and Eddie Vedder came on and played "The Times They Are A-Changin'" (with "permission from the author") sitting down. Oh, and there was a special appearance from Bob Roberts, who came on in flag-draped wheelchair and blind-man sunglasses, and he played "Drugs Stink" and "This Land Is My Land" and I am happy to report that I think most of the audience got it. He did it completely straight, which was kind of creepy.

(I just have to say: Bob Roberts is the single scariest film I have ever seen.)

There were only two mike stands on the stage, and they really could have used another one.

Then, after Bill Murray did a few minutes on being freaked out by the red tie brigade (sporting lovely orange camo pants that probably glowed in the dark), Donahue (who acted as kind of the host) came back on and introduced Ralph to all of us, amid clouds of confetti and much to-do. Now I'd read that he couldn't hold the audience his opening acts prepared for him, but he seemed to do pretty good here. He covered a lot of ground, discussed his environmental concerns, inserted a couple of decent rants about corporate welfare around a bit on universal health care and military cutbacks, and covered the whole hour-long speech with generous dollops of campaign finance reform. The packed house (a complete sellout at $20 a head) stayed till the end, cheering and booing lustily in all the right places. Occasionally, chants of Let Ralph Debate would wash through the room. The mood was jovial.

There were a lot of students, but I saw plenty of dirty clothes and older folks there, of all colors and peoples. Oh, and I ran into my old friend Nicole from Toronto. Apparently there were a lot of Canadian expats in the Nader camp. (This makes sense - he's the only one we pseudo-lefty types can stand.) We congratulated each other on our astuteness, and went back to our chairs.

At the end of the show, everyone came back on stage and sang Patti's "People Have The Power", and halfway through Patti started the Let Ralph Debate chant again, and a marching band took the new voter registration forms collected that night out the back of the arena and down the street in procession, and I'm willing to believe all this theater and posturing matters. I have to. Sure as hell nothing else does.

CHRONICLE OF A DEATH FORETOLD
My thoughts today are with Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

I got an email from a friend I haven't spoken to in a while with what purports to be his final letter. (I know, I know, it's a hoax, but read on.) The story goes, he's apparently dying of lymphatic cancer, and wanted to officially retire from public life, and so wrote a closing note to a friend of his, who then disseminated it all over.

(Now, to set the record straight, he was treated for cancer last year, but he is apparently still very much alive. The letter was actually written by a Mexican ventriloquist named, of all things, Johnny Welch.)

I have a special passion for Latin American Literature. At one point when I was in high school, still picking up literature pretty much at random (all my friends were into sci-fi and I couldn't stand it at the time), our school library went through a renovation, and gave away a whole roomful of books that no one had checked out or were getting old or whatever. Two books (of the couple dozen or so that would fit in my bag) I grabbed were The Death of Artemio Cruz, by Carlos Fuentes, and One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Between those two books, I fell madly, stupidly in love with the literature of Latin America. I read the Fuentes one first, and it was a revelation. I had no idea you could present thought-shapes on the page, and tell a real history, without having the shackles of point-by-point paragraphs with subject-verb-object. The words and emotions kind of swam about the page, and I immersed myself, and I felt like I knew more about the history of Mexico than any history class could ever have taught me. (I was 17, what the hell did I know.)

Then I read Solitude. I never liked saga-type novels, long sweeping histories of one family or one place or time (I still don't think I get Dostoevsky, or even Margaret Mitchell for that matter), but that book changed all that. I still remember when I finished it. I was on a Greyhound bus with my best friend Martin, and we were going to Waterloo (about an hour and a half ride) to go to some party, so he was all jovial and talkative, and as I read the last two pages, the power of the world sat on my poor little impressionable teenage head, and suddenly I didn't want to party anymore. All I wanted to do was think about the universe, and my place in it. I made him shut up, and all weekend I sat in a corner with my beer, just staring out the window, feeling like I weighed a thousand pounds, like I was about to give birth to a universe.

I'd like to think I'm not one for superlatives, but... the last five pages of One Hundred Years of Solitude is the most perfect and beautiful written passage I could ever imagine reading.

I don't think the importance of a satisfying ending to a great work can possibly be overstated, and that's why I think I want so much to believe this letter going around, despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. To have one of the most influential writers I know provide some kind of coda (no matter what form it ultimately takes) to his own life seems only right and proper, and I would do good to aspire to compose a similarly appropriate ending, as comparatively insignificant as my life may ultimately be.

HOW TO BREAK UP YOUR BAND 101

Case Study 1: Styx. Dennis DeYoung wanted to be the next Freddy Mercury, but for all the classical training and footlight-primed MORness of his voice, he just didn't have the arranging chops or the overarching vision that Freddy did. (What is "Kilroy Was Here" if not an attempt at a "Bohemian Rhapsody"-style rawk opera?)

Shame they couldn't put it together, because guitarist Tommy Shaw had Brian May-level talent. Bigger shame still that now they're suing each other. Dennis went off to do Broadway, and Tommy Shaw went on to form the plod-rock act Damn Yankees (with Ted Nugent, another rocket scientist). In fact, his post-Styx life had no musical merit except for the unshittily bouncy "Girls With Guns."

The only upside to them getting back together is that they have replaced Dennis DeYoung with, of all people, my man Lawrence Gowan, someone I actually know a little bit (true, the music scene in Canada is small, but -- his keys are on my record!). They found the right guy to front that band, and I wish Lawrence all the luck in the world, but this was a band with enormous talents that never put them together, and now their breakup has ended up in court. A sad ending to a once-promising saga.

Case Study 2: Phish. Two months ago, they were on the cover of every magazine in the world, and after 17 years, they're the biggest band on the road. Even people who don't like their music or their fans can respect their work ethic and their ability to just... keep... going. They had the good sense to split when things are still good between the four of them, and they'll get back together after they spend a couple of years with their families or whatever. That's pretty damned classy.

"GIMME MY JOURNALISM PURE & UNCUT," A SCENE CRIES:
ZINE EDITOR CAUTIOUSLY REJOICES
I wrote an editorial in the last A/M asking what the readership of this zine I now run actually is.

I took it over a couple of months ago (because, you know, I have absolutely nothing else to do with my days), and all I really knew about it was that it served the indie songwriting and performing scenes in Lower Manhattan, with occasional forays into scenes in other towns and areas. (I'll send you a sample copy gratis if you want.)

All of which is fine, but I had no idea, literally, if people were reading it like a trade magazine, or using it as a promotional tool, or actually looking for new artists to listen to, or what.

It had a circulation of about a hundred, and (I'm guessing) a readership of maybe 200, and I think doubling that by year end is realistic, but I figured I'd throw it to the constituents as to how it could go.

I don't wanna sound hackneyed or anything, but -- It's the scene's zine, I'm just the caretaker. I'll write reviews and make it look pretty, but aside from that, I want it to be what the scene dictates. Society pages? Great. Puff Pieces? If that's what people want, fantastic. Advice Columns? Rock on, brothers and sisters. Scenes and songwriters from other towns? Nothing would please me more. Local theater, indie film, art shows? If you can cover it, we can print it. We're only an unpaid staff of four people at this point, so anything I write in this space that sounds like sales pitch-sounding propaganda is actually rather heartfelt.

Anyway, I digress. I got two Letters to the Editor on this very topic today (Oh, do I love Letters to the Editor). Both said largely the same thing. Puff pieces are out - they cheapen the tone of the zine, and undermine its credibility.

I was hoping that would be the consensus, but I'm not closing the jury door just yet.

More on this later, I'm sure. The whole where-does-the-zine-fit-into-the-scene-and-more-importantly-my-life thing has been on my mind a lot recently.

QUEER SOUL GETS MILITANT
The Testosterone Kills interview is finally up at the A/M site. Again, I'm amazed at their eloquence, once they get started.

It's easily the best interview I've ever done, but then again, I haven't conducted one in eight years before this. More to the point, they should be proud of it too. Their rage is truly righteous, and here it glows in a thousand beautiful colors.

I was talking with Pablo on Saturday night, and he mentioned about his idolization of Chuck D and all he stood for. And then he mentioned that Chuck has apparently said some pretty nasty things about the gay community, and how he was having a hard time rationalizing those two things.

I can't imagine what that feels like, to know that your heroes might just kick your ass, purely on principle, if you ever met them.

MAYBE THERE IS A GOD AFTER ALL
One more - from today's Billboard Bulletin:

Actor Sued Over Unreleased Album

Three investors in Steven Seagal's still-unreleased album have sued the actor, alleging that he had no intention of completing the project. In the action, filed Friday in California Superior Court in L.A., Michael Vanderhoof, Michael Khaled and Donald Danks claim they put a total of $600,000 into the recording of the album and the making of an accompanying documentary film. The plaintiffs seek the recovery of their investment, plus additional special and punitive damages to be determined. Seagal's office did not return a call seeking comment.

My first thought is - anyone stupid enough to put $600,000 into a Steven Seagal album falls quite neatly into the fool-and-his-money paradigm. P.T. Barnum is having a good laugh somewhere over this one.

My second thought is one of gratitiude to Mr. Seagal. He had no intention of finishing the album! Thank you for sparing us your velvet voice and unique diction of which you have something which to say but we cannot tell! Thank You! Bless You! The world is safe for another day!

THE VAUNTED LANGUAGE BARRIER
One of the biggest problems with being a Canadian in this foreign (and otherwise beautiful and perfect, I hasten to add) land is that the locals speak a totally different language, and it sounds exactly like English.

Case study #814: My new favourite multi-use performance space, Manhattan Theatre Source, has caused no end of grief because the middle word in the name is spelt with an r-e instead of an e-r, like it's supposed to be in these here parts.

No one would have thought aboot it twice, if the name hadn't been registered by the lone Canadian on the MTS Staff, a charming Leafs fan named Ed, who is un des grands fromages on the board there, and hence is spelt the Canadian (or as I like to call it, the "proper") way.

Anyway, it's a beautiful little bunch of rooms, and the stuff they put on in there (plays, musicals, performances, parties, they got a bookstore and workshops and etc etc ad absurdum) is never less than really good, and for way cheaper than the freaking Lion King or whatever piece of crud David Hasselhoff's starring in these days.

But remember, it's Theatre Source. It's spelt the classy way, because it's, like, a classy joint and shit. That's how I remember it. (Or will now - see, the link on the sidebar was wrong before, and now I've fixed it.)

A good day to come check the space out might be Tuesday, October 17.

So I missed the Anti Hootenanny at the Sidewalk Cafe tonight, because I was sending out what turned out to be a very businesslike emailer.

Sorry.

I finally got a shipment of A/M Magazine, though. They look pretty good. If you want one, let me know and I'll mail you one.

I promise to be back to my inane whinging self in no time. But right now, I'm going to play Bed-E-Bye.

SYMPATHY FOR GUNGA DIN
Last night I played this show at this brand new joint called Bar East Undergound, on the Upper East Side (does one capitalize neighborhood names like that here? I should know, shouldn't I). It's a gorgeous room, which just needs people. (Not unlike my bedroom.) Sean, the guy who runs the club, is a standup comedian who managed to put some money away and has now opened this new joint. (I got some pictures of the interior - if only I could get them out of this stupid camera...)

Anyway. Sean, buddy, pal, mate, dude, I hate to tell you, but if you were smart enough to make and save a few bucks as a comic, then how can you also be crazy enough to waste that money by pouring it into a live club in Manhattan?

Not that I don't support and encourage such folly. I'll do my best to help him out, as a performer and music wrangler every once in a while. But he's a better man than I. I'd be thinking T-Bills or maybe real estate.

Or maybe a controlling stake in this, ah, growth product.

BUSYBUSYBUSY!
How many people do you know like this?

You. Yes, you. Friend of mine. Person I don't know. Do you identify with this? What makes you so busy? I'm not saying you're not, I'm asking.

One of the reasons I moved to New York was because people in Toronto were too busy.

Busy busy busy. I learned to hate the word.

Too busy to write, too busy to actually make meetings, too busy to think about anything other than what was on their mind. It got to the point where I expected nothing from anyone. There's a franticness in the eyes of most of the people I knew there that said look, I can't deal with this right now, okay?

I kind of figured that this was basically a universal thing, that everyone was overworked and courting burnout, living on 3 hours sleep and 2 pots of coffee a day. It can be done, I know it, and for a whole lifetime too, if you don't mind sacrificing IQ points to the gods of productivity.

I know it's not just Toronto. It's just more pandemic there than anywhere else I've ever seen. And I got sick of asking people how they were, only to have to tune out the first 30 seconds of their answer because it involved variations on the phrase "I'm soooo busy." and I just got sick of it. Yeah, you're busy, so's everyone, but how are you?

It disturbs me how many people I meet who can't answer that question without referring to how cluttered their lives are. If your life is that cluttered, then jettison something. And if you're just saying that to avoid me, then -- go on, git! I have things to do too, you know!

And in New York, I thought I had escaped that beast, at least as much as I could. People here are busier than anywhere. And yet, paradoxically, they seem to have more time to do the things they want to do.

Is it because New Yorkers are just better people than the rest of the world? Or does this place lend itself better to not letting what you want to do get in the way of what you have to do?

So I finally got my digital camera. It was the first thing I bought over the internet (no wait, I did buy a plane ticket to Toronto a couple of months ago), and well, I’m glad it actually finally got delivered, after only like a month of comedy-of-errors type hijinks. (You name it: stock errors, disgruntled workers at the warehouse, lost the invoice, I heard them all this month. I got to use the way-cool phrase I’d like to speak to your supervisor four times today alone.) Are these things supposed to take that long to get to where they’re supposed to go?

I’ve been screaming at UPS people all day and quite frankly I’m a little frazzled. Nothing against UPS, but – okay, I heard about the history of UPS, how it was started by teenagers setting up a bike courier service like a hundred years ago in Seattle somewhere, how it was a friendly little union-owned place that was real forward thinking, and I think, how could they have moved so far off that ethic to one of not knowing what the rest of the company is doing, working at cross purposes, and being downright obstructional?

I know I’m not the only one who’s had these problems, but well, sometimes it feels that way.

And hey, who cares? I have a camera now! Like you care! The hell with all of you! I have a new toy!

Oh, and another thing: Damn Hell Ass Kings! What a pretty little portal you are! Oh yes! Oh Yes! Snarky yet jaded! And I love the brown-on-green-on-brown color scheme!

Insane, Yet Somehow Correct
I never bought into the idea that Camille Paglia was some kind of overeducated butchy bitchy wacko who just wouldn't shut up. Well, yeah: her writing is occasionally overcouched in academic doublespeak, and she has a tendency to whip herself into an orgiastic froth about pointless esoterica. Her three books are unfinishable without a philosophy degree, and even in conversation, she drops so many references from all over the place that she makes Dennis Miller sound like Barney The Freaking Dinosaur. Top that with an ego as big & overgrown as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and I can see why people think she can't really know what she's talking about.

But when I can actually figure out her point, she makes a lot of sense. Her writing for Salon is actually kind of dumbed-down, which is good for us idiots who ain't so keen on book-learnin. Her case for voting for Ralph Nader is as convincing as anything I've read...

A vote for Gore is a vote for the status quo. A vote for Gore rewards the corrupt superstructure of the Democratic party and ensures that it will not change, that it will go right on with business as usual, locked in parasitic intercourse with upper-middle-class special-interest groups and craven media flacks. The best hope for a rejuvenated Democratic party is a humiliating defeat this November.

It makes no sense to vote for Gore out of fear of what Bush might put in the Supreme Court. The arguments (abortion will be outlawed, the Supreme Court will swing wildly to the right) don't make any sense. Besides, W.'s too much of a kiss-ass to screw up the status quo completely anyways. He'll be ineffectual, the world will not be any better for him being president, but really, it's not like he'll actually do anything to piss someone off. He's more obsequious than his dad, even.

(Also, I kind of thought it was fixed for Bush to win already, and all this is academic. Isn't it? And if it is, then who cares where I put my two cents?)

I've been transcribing an interview I did with the hard acoustic pop duo Testosterone Kills that I did yesterday. They're a couple of real thoughtful lads, with their politics and sexuality in good working order, and they've been kind of an inspiration to me.

I just felt compelled to say that. There are a few people in this town who really excite me, who I see as the reason I moved to New York, examples in how to do what it is I need to do, the kind of people that just don't exist in Toronto, and whose personality types I could not explain to the folks back home. Pablo and Tim are definitely two of those. They have made what amounts to a deal with the devil: they're a couple, they're a performing duo, they do everything together (except for day jobs, but still). They have truly thrown their lots together, and the synergy is causing their light to burn even brighter.

The cockles of my lonely little heart are warmed just thinking about how successful they've been already. Their first album is out now, and they've played some shows, and they haven't killed each other yet.

Now they should really get a website already.

Look for the full interview next week sometime, probably.

Okay. That's it. Back to the mines. (Also, I'll promise to link to something else at some point, but not until I come up for air. There's a couple of things I wanted to post here, but -- well, the tape is on pause and my break is now over.)